An open house event at the City of Kamloops’ Civic Operations Centre Saturday drew hundreds of attendees who got a glimpse of what municipal crews do to keep the city humming. Jen Fretz, City of Kamloops civic operations director, said as of Saturday at about 1:30 p.m.
, there were close to 500 people who had come to the open house — the highest number of attendees this event has seen. “It’s more wonderful each and every year, it's a fantastic opportunity for not only for the public to see behind the scenes and understand what we do in civic operations, but it's also amazing for our staff to be able to show the work that they do each and every day,” Fretz said. “They're so filled with pride in the work that they do, and then to be able to showcase that to the public is just amazing.
” The open house included an interactive display of streets equipment, where attendees could hop up into heavy equipment along with an operator to try out the machinery. Attendees could stop by booths to learn about how the city’s water and wastewater plants work, dig for artefacts with the city’s archaeologist, and tour the sign shop to learn more about how municipal signs are created and how crews paint lines on the roads. People could also get up close with the cameras which are sent to assess underground pipes, check out survey equipment, and put together a planter box to take home.
“We have all of our utilities crews, our streets crews, our environmental services group, the .