Fairfield city staffer donates time to fix fence at troublesome intersection

FAIRFIELD – Fairfield’s Street Superintendent did a good deed recently by donating his time to a Fairfield homeowner needing help to move a fence.

The City of Fairfield identified a line-of-sight problem caused by a fence at the intersection of South Second Street and West Harrison Avenue. Ownership of the property had recently changed hands, and the city was in talks with the new owner about how to address the issue. Fairfield Street Superintendent Joe Hird sympathized with the new homeowner who had inherited this problem, and decided to extend a helping hand.

The fence is on the northeast corner of the street, so southbound traffic on South Second are blocked from seeing traffic coming from their left on West Harrison. Hird saw that moving the fence back 6 feet, out of the city’s right-of-way that it had been built on, would solve the issue.

The homeowner purchased new posts for the fence, and Hird dug new holes for them. In the evening after work, Hird laid out a fence line, set all the new posts in concrete one by one, took all the old panels off and screwed them to the new posts. The whole process took three or four days, and Hird did it just in the nick of time because the ground froze the day after he finished.

Hird said he had never met the homeowner before, and just felt that this was a good deed that needed to be done.

“The fence was already there when he bought the place, and there was pressure from the community to move it,” Hird said. “I knew it was going to be maybe 12 hours of my time, just not a big deal. I think we’ve fixed the line-of-sight now.”

Hird said it felt good to help out a stranger.

“Sometimes the greater gift is to the person helping,” he said. “It helped him, but it also helped me. That’s what we’re here for.”

During the Dec. 15 Fairfield City Council meeting, City Administrator Doug Reinert thanked Hird for volunteering his time to help both this homeowner and the motorists who travel through the intersection.

“The property looks very nice and is much safer for everyone,” Reinert said.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com