On Thursday Feb 17 a luncheon was held to honour the retirement of Ken Silovitch, an employee of the town of Princeton who was retiring after 35 years of working for our community. It was only a few months ago we were celebrating the retirement of Henry Rykers, a Town of Princeton employee for over 25 years.
These retirements mark the beginning of the end of an era, the departure of two employees who represent the character of a crew who has served us so very well for so very long. There will be additional retirement luncheons in the next few years and for us that have been associated with these workers there is a touch of sadness. A touch of sadness because we are saying goodbye to a group of hardworking and dedicated men. A group of men who required a minimum of direction, whether they were shoveling snow at 20 below or up to their knees repairing a sewer line, they knew what needed to be done and they did it very well. A group of men who were always so conscious of the people they worked for and the value of the tax dollars that they were responsible for. If you ever neglected to take advantage of methods to cut costs, they were immediately there to remind you.
The other advantage of having men like Ken and Henry working for you was the standard that they set served to eliminate anyone that couldn’t pull his weight, with the workload the crew was responsible for, it didn’t take very long to determine whether a prospective employee was letting the team down. We have a fine bunch of young industrious crew members coming along; I am confident they will serve the Town of Princeton very well and for years to come. I am also confident that the excellent standard which our new crew members adopted was a tradition which Ken and his fellow workers inherited and cultivated over the years
What I tried to impress on Ken last Thursday was how proud he needs to be when he walks down our community streets because whether he was involved in one stage or another of our various projects or whether the capacity of the work he and the crew delivered that inevitably made the funding of those projects possible, he was enormously responsible.
.And as I said on behalf of the community as well as past and present council, “we absolutely know how much your hard work and dedication was responsible for making us look good and making your community a better place to live. You will truly be missed. We wish you all the happiness and contentment in your retirement; you have more than earned it.” Mayor Randy Mclean