Public Works working to beautify, maintain city parks

The Stanley Public Works department has been busy at work on the local city parks, alongside its many other duties. Of late the department was replaced an old wooden bridge that was in poor condition on the bike path through Fandry Park, worked to clear overgrown brush on Hoody’s Island north of the Chapman Lake Campground, and sought to make more appealing to fishermen an old rail spur off the campground area to the east, where fish jump and roll just feet from shore. We caught up with the City’s public works director John Hoel to get an update on just what the public works crew, has been up to. This is what he had to report.

“The bridge rebuild was a project that we have been looking at completing since the spring of 2020,” Hoel said of the wooden bridge repair and replacement in Fandry Park. “We had noticed that the supporting structure of the bridge was deteriorating to the point it would not support itself for much longer. We acquired two steel beams earlier this summer and finally had time to get the project completed. We also added some dirt to the embankments on either side of the bridge so it wouldn't be so steep.” The finished product mimics the old bridge in outward appearance, but is sturdier and once again ready to last for years to come. Then there’s the tree trimming at the old rail spur off the campground and elsewhere.

Photos by Joseph Back. “Our tree trimming efforts in Chapman and Fandry Parks began in the winter of 2019,” Hoel said. “We assist the DNR in turning on the aerators in Chapman Lake each winter (to help prevent winter fish kills due to low oxygen levels in the water) and in 2019 we noticed a park bench near the campground with a wall of brush in front of the bench so thick you could not see the lake. That winter we cleared out all of the brush around the lake side of the campground and trimmed several trees in the campground. In the winter of 2020 we cleared out the old railroad spur adjacent to the campground as the entire spur was like a jungle,” Hoel said. “There was a very narrow trail leading to the east end of the spur, making it nearly impossible for anyone to fish off of the spur. By removing all of the brush and dead trees on the spur it will allows the smaller more desirable trees a better environment to grow and access to fish that area of the lake.” Hoel said in addition that the city public works crew had then continued trimming the shoreline on the Fandry Park side of Chapman lake that was overgrown with brush and low hanging tree branches. After finishing with the rail spur and Fandry Park work the city crew moved on to Hoody’s Island, separated from the local campground by a channel of water approximately 70 feet wide at its closest approach on the north side of the lake.

“When I graduated from high school I worked for the city mowing lawn and under Gene's direction,” the current public works director said of the island’s namesake and past city public works director Eugene Hodowanic, who worked for the City of Stanley from 1963 up until his retirement in 2005, before passing away in February 2017. “Gene took great pride in how the parks and the City itself looked and made sure everything was in order and the parks looked like a park,” Hoel said. “That is what we are trying to accomplish and get back to with all of our efforts. We have received many compliments from visitors to the Parks with many of them stating that ‘the City of Stanley has some of the nicest parks in Chippewa County!’ We are just trying to improve the parks the best we can for everyone to enjoy them,” he said.

Hoel went on to say that the public works department and its workers had also seal coated and repainted two of the basketball courts and the walking trail through Chapman and Fandry Parks, explaining that this would help preserve the asphalt and reduce the cost of having to replace them prematurely.

Closing out his public works update, Hoel said the department had also expanded the fishing area below the dam on the Wolf River south of Chapman and added a picnic table along with a garbage can to that area. That wasn’t the end though.

“Our hopes in the future would be to add a mowed walking trail along the river extending to the snowmobile bridge south of the dam,” he said. “Of course time and budget constraints will dictate if this project will be feasible.”