Deering has lived in Gorham his entire life, starting his career working in construction for Shaw Brothers. With a downturn in the economy, the potential for construction slowed down and in 1989, Deering took a job with Gorham’s Public Works Department and decided this was where he wanted to stay. He has a staff of 22 to address the responsibilities of the Department. He has also been a volunteer with the Gorham Fire Department for 44 years.

Public Works maintains Gorham’s roads and grounds at an annual budget of $2,700,000. Dirt roads are generally graded in the fall and are then good until spring, but winter weather can be very hard on dirt roads as it has been this year. Public Works receives many complaints about road conditions, especially about potholes. They routinely plow 300 lane miles of roads, including the Town and school parking lots along with thirteen miles of sidewalks. In the summer, they do sweeping as stormwater permits require that Public Works sweep roads and clean catch basins. They also mow all Town facilities, maintain cemeteries, do road projects and help out other Town Departments as needed.

“There is no downtime,” said Deering, “every season brings its own set of challenges. At times staff will work 18-19 days in a row. They always need to maintain their equipment to be ready for the next storm.”

Public Works oversees the terms of the contracts and billing with Casella for waste management, and with ecomaine for recycling. Casella is one of only two companies in the area that do garbage collection. The tags we put on each bag of garbage put out for collection cover most of the contractor’s collection and tipping fee costs. The economy also plays a huge role in these costs. The more we recycle, and the cleaner the recycling that is sent to ecomaine, the less the Town pays for these services.