Not many private citizens know Angel Otero or have even heard of his name, but the public in general has benefited from his role in lining up workers for dozens of local public projects.
On Friday Otero will be honored from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Prairie Justice Center in Worthington. He is retiring after 22 years as the community service supervisor with Nobles-Rock Community Corrections.
Otero began and now ends his job completing projects in Rock County.
Kenneth was the site of Otero’s first community service crew painting the interior of the former Kenneth Town Hall in June of 1993.
Since then hundreds of laborers under his watch helped with township ditch cleaning, state park tree and brush removal, structural improvements at the fairgrounds, painting at the courthouse, and the latest —demolition at the former Herman Motor Co. building and future home of the History Center on East Main Street.
“It will be a nice location for the Historical Society,” said Otero, a New York City native.
He estimated he has saved that specific project about $5,000 in labor.
Paid $6 per hour, crew numbers average four to seven members at a time. They are working off court-issued sentencing by completing service projects in Nobles and Rock counties.
Only one sentence-to-serve laborer has run away from the worksite, Otero said. The incident occurred in 1995 and that worker was sentenced to two years in a penitentiary.
“It’s just not worth it to run,” he said.
Kyle Oldre, Rock County administrator, said Otero’s leadership style is a big reason for inmate cooperation.
“He has a way about him that they respect him,” Oldre said. “And he’s telling them to do some really crummy jobs.”
At the History Center during his last two weeks before retirement, Otero’s crew was removing all the insulation, tile and thousands of nails from the three garage bay ceilings.
Previously, the crew removed all the 1930s tin tiling from the office ceilings. The tile will be reused in the renovated facility, he said.
Scheduled to be open next year, the History Center renovation will begin in earnest after the Historical Society’s annual meeting in mid-September.
“We are getting ready to progress,” said Historical Society member Dave Smith.
When it’s finished, Otero said he plans to be one of the first visitors to the new center.
Otero’s retirement from Community Corrections will be the second such event in his life, having served as a gunner’s mate in the U.S. Navy, retiring after 20 years.
But don’t expect Otero to be sitting in a rocking chair next week. He said he has many projects lined up for completion.
“I can’t sit back,” he said, having learned that from retiring from military service. “I didn’t like it.”