{"id":10644,"date":"2023-12-10T16:10:46","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T21:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=10644"},"modified":"2023-12-10T16:10:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T21:10:47","slug":"city-employee-who-retired-is-coming-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/10\/city-employee-who-retired-is-coming-back\/","title":{"rendered":"City employee who retired is coming back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit of an odd situation occurred at Tuesday night’s meetings of Decatur City Council and the city’s board of works and safety. A longtime employee who just retired was handed considerable praise by city council \u2013 after he was rehired earlier in the evening by the board of works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, longtime employee Verlin Butcher is returning on only a part-time basis, or, as it was called, \u201con an as needed basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butcher (photo) was assistant wastewater superintendent when he stepped down Nov. 30 after 39 years with the department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butcher was praised at the time of the announcement for his wealth of knowledge of the department and its workings. \u201cHis knowledge is hard to replace,\u201d Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord said in making the announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, it was extremely hard \u2026 or easy, as the case may be. Superintendent Karey Fuelling talked to Verlin and \u201che is coming back on a part-time basis,\u201d she told the board. A certified operator was needed and Butcher filled that requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt will be so nice to have that knowledge (stay with the department),\u201d the mayor exclaimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hired in November of 1984 as a wastewater plant operator during the Isch Administration, Butcher was appointed Assistant Wastewater Superintendent in January of 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the state mandated the separation of sanitary and storm water sewers years ago, Butcher worked with outdated maps in poor condition to locate storm sewer cross connections with the sanitary sewer, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He dye-tested and looked in every storm and sanitary manhole in Decatur and all the data he collected was committed to his amazing memory, they continued. Engineering firms relied heavily on Butcher to commit his memory to paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Butcher’s retirement was so short-lived that city council didn’t have time to pass a retirement resolution applauding his service. So that was done in the council meeting \u2013 which followed the works meeting when he was rehired on a part-time basis!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com A bit of an odd situation occurred at Tuesday night’s meetings of Decatur City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17,14],"class_list":["post-10644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-community","tag-decatur"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Butcher.jpg?fit=289%2C384&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}