The city utilities department urges people to be thoughtful about what they flush. “No wipes down the drain,” Utilities Superintendent Tracie Marshall said during Portage’s annual National Night Out event Tuesday.
“We are there working for them,” she wants residents to know. Much of what the department does is hidden from view, buried underground.
“We show all the fun tools that we get to work with,” Marshall said, including a vacuum truck and a camera for seeing what’s inside the city’s sanitary sewers.
The department gave away back-to-school supplies, including a pencil pouch filled with blunt scissors, colored pencils and more.
Then there were the more fun giveaways, themed appropriately to the department’s primary function.
“We’re giving away poo stress balls, poo keychains” and other poo emoji-themed trinkets. “We’ve got some angry poo; we’ve got some positive poo.”
Some donated cinnamon rolls were being handed out, too.
National Night Out is designed as a time for the public to meet police and firefighters without requiring an emergency or confrontation.
Police social worker Morgan Kobitka organized this year’s event.
“I’m super happy with the turnout,” she said. Exhibitors offered an array of community resources, whether you need food, help with kids or learning how to read.
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“We’re all human” behind the lights and sirens, Kobitka said.
“I think this is going to be our biggest one ever,” said Police Captain Rob Maynard, who organized the event in previous years. “She eagerly took it and ran with it.”
“I wish I could multiply her a couple of times over,” he said.
With the Hub Coalition among the exhibitors, it made sense to collect expired and no-longer-needed prescription drugs, Maynard said. “We’re here, they’re here. Why not?”
The event saw more medications brought in than he expected, causing him to run a filled box to the police station and bring back an empty one.
Mayor Austin Bonta, Police Chief Michael Candiano and Fire Chief Chris Crail took turns in the dunk tank. Bonta was dunked 15 to 20 times, he said.
“When you fall in, keep your arms and legs flailing like crazy to give the impression you weren’t expecting it,” Bonta advised other dunk tank victims.
When the ball doesn’t hit the target, wipe your forehead or use some other gesture to show you’re relieved, he said.
Candiano said he was dunked five times in the first five minutes of his shift.
“The fire chief helped me out once,” he said.
Johnny Serratto, of Portage, was among the kids throwing softballs at the target. “I thought I would make it because when I aim, I usually make it,” he said. It was a fun and exciting event for him.
For adventurous kids, Gilliane Talley, of Christopher Burke Engineering, was eager to feed them bugs.
“Our main focus is water resources” and related environmental issues, she said, so the firm engineered some ways to incorporate insects into cookies and other foods to promote alternative sources of protein.
“You don’t really taste the bugs, so it’s easier to get used to the concept,” Talley said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.