Public Works Department to the (animal) rescue

The Fredonia Public Works Department isn’t an animal rescue organization.

But it played one in real life last week, saving one furry fella and 11 feathered friends.

First, a kitten got stuck under Highland Drive near the Mobil station on June 24. Clerk Michelle Johnson contacted Public Works Department Director Eric Paulus.

“I thought it was a joke when Michelle called me about the cat in the storm drain,” he said.

Paulus sent two employees to investigate, including his son. Police officers and firefighters also joined the effort.

“Brett Paulus went down in the manhole to scoop him out, and the cat took off the other way across the road. Then I stood out on the other end where it was daylight by Port Washington State Bank,” he said.

“I called it toward me. It didn’t scratch or anything. I was surprised.”

The cat didn’t have a collar but now has food and shelter at the Ozaukee campus of the Wisconsin Humane Society in Saukville.

The village’s Facebook post about the rescue “became our most-liked social media post ever,” Village Administrator Christophe Jenkins said.

A day later, a second rescue was executed.

Public Works Department crew member Jason Laabs was marking for Digger’s Hotline near the former Guy & O’Neill building when he saw a mother duck walk across a catch basin and all 10 ducklings fall in.

The younger Paulus was dispatched again.

“I sent Brett back over there because he’s the skinny one,” his father said. “He pulled all of them out of there, gave them back to the mom and they took off.”

Last Friday was absent of animal calls.

“We took off that day,” Eric Paulus said.