Spring Valley man paints hydrants, brightens neighborhood

Jim Dabler saw something in his neighborhood he thought could be better and he did something about it.

Dabler, a retiree who lives in Spring Valley, recently took it upon himself to paint all the fire hydrants in the Webster Park area of the city, just because he believed they looked old and kinda shabby after years of little care.

“I guess I wanted things to look better a little better.”

—  Jim Dabler, a retiree who painted fire hydrants in Webster Park

His efforts were brought Monday to the attention of the Spring Valley City Council and to a person all appreciative of Dabler going the extra mile for his community.

“I have to give a big attaboy to Mr. Dabler,” Street Superintendent Jeff Norton told the council. “He asked about doing it, so we found him some paint and I think he may have gone out and bought some more paint on his own, but he did every single one of them.

“On his own time, he wanted something to keep himself busy and he did a beautiful job. We thank him for doing that for us.”

It was in September that Dabler was performing his daily duty of walking his neighbor’s dog when on these walks they passed several hydrants that hadn’t been painted in many years. He asked another neighbor who works for the street department, Mary Neilsen, what it would take to get that painting done.

“She said, well, if you want to you could go ahead and paint it or any of the others in Webster Park, I was welcome to do it,” Dabler said. “She talked with Jeff and he got me a whole bunch of red paint and I eventually got to them all.”

Dabler did a lot of scraping off of old paint and rust, even using a rotary tool to get to the really tough stuff. It took him between 90 minutes to two hours to do just one, but when he finished, he moved on to the next.

In all, Dabler had resurfaced and painted all 12 hydrants in the Webster Park area.

“I guess I wanted things to look better a little better,” Dabler said, “but also that I’m retired and have a lot of time on my hands. It was something productive to do that we could take pride in. I’ve been happy to do it.”

“I want to find where he lives and go thank him myself,” Mayor Melanie Malooley-Thompson said. “I had no idea that he had volunteered to do this, but we really appreciate it. They look wonderful.”