Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird on Monday presented the Mayor’s Award of Excellence for February 2023 to a team from the Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Department.
The award was presented at the beginning of the City Council meeting to Tina Baker, Jerry Pietzyk, and Jeffery Lacey. They were nominated by LPD Captain Ben Miller and Sgt. Jenny Glantz for their work in helping LPD search for evidence at the Lincoln landfill last September in connection with a homicide investigation.
“Carrying out a search at the landfill presented a whole host of unique challenges, including temperatures that exceeded 100 degrees, health and safety concerns and a staggering amount of material that required a thorough search,” Gaylor Baird says.
The search of the landfill lasted several days. She says Baker, senior environmental specialist, helped with coordinating and executing the search. “And for their part, Jeff and Jerry assisted the investigation by moving thousands of pounds of material in ways that allowed our law enforcement professionals to conduct their search safely.”