Not to get off the subject but there are numerous mentions of the Council's support of the Ice Arena. I'm wondering if the Council's decision is swayed by the fact that the owners of the ice hockey team are all area businessmen in the construction business?

$40 a year breaks down to slightly under $3.50 per month. Is it really a big deal? I agree that the ice arena idea is ridiculous! And, personally after this misuse of funds, believe that we should vote out the entire group, but, is $40 annually really a big deal? Every other week pick up would be a nightmare, and taking it to the landfill myself is surely going to cost more than 80 cents a week in gas and time spent.

gonefishin: It took 8 years to destroy this country, what makes you think that it can be fixed in 1-1/2 years? Like I said, if you think you can do better, why don't you run for president? Whether, it be a Republican or Democrat President, it will be a long time till things get any better. There are things that Obama does that I like and things that I dislike. I'm not a fool, because I know that it will take a long time to fix the mess we are in right now, if it can be fixed. Fools are people who think that everything will be fixed right away. I wonder who that would be?

We will "consider" firing all of you for spending money we do not have but NOBODY else will apply for the job.

PARK PLACE NEWS FEB 2008
I am tired of hearing we don't pay for trash pick up-
"Sanitation – Encompasses trash and recycling collection and disposal programs, including waste, tire and appliance
recycling, management of sanitary and demolition landfills and compost facility and twice-yearly yard waste collection.
Program costs are also paid for by user fees, such as sanitary landfill and drop-off fees. $13.45 $1.12"


When I brought this up to City Council they said "this is a misprint" WHATEVER!!!

http://www.ci.janesville.wi.us/Library/P...

tjrockcounty- the city doesn't pick up apartment building garbage. This is hired out.
I think every other week would be good. I don't want to pay $40 a year. An apartment building owner lets me dump in the dumpster. God bless him. Thanks.

RoadKing: LOL! Thank you for my first laugh of the day.

Isn't the garbage fee the council members and city managers salaries?

A $40.00 fee - interesting idea...instead - how about not spending millions on ice arena. Wake up and look at the economy please.

Did I just read , 2 articles that say the city is spending 2 million on an ice arena? What? another said that the youthsports complex is addind softball diamonds for 1.2 million? are you kidding me? city services and education are struggling so badly and the city is blowing money on recreation? Fire everyone of the council members, they are spending like drunken sailors. dont blame obama, you dont have to look that far, my god that is so outrageous i want to go protest at the council meetings, even if i go by myself. what a joke, who could possibly advocate such wates of taxpayer dollars when there are much more pressing needs in our community. who? could some one answer this for me because i would like to talk to them pesrsonally and give them a piece of my mind.

I will say this though, Obama bashing on an article about raising trash fees in Janesville, Wi 40 bucks, that is pricelessly stupid. only in a town with "redneck fest". Absolutely hilarious! Seriously?

Everyother week doesnt work for us, twin babies. Get it my garage would smell so bad i cant even explain. plus cutting up bluegills/walleyes? my neighbors would smell it! Leave partisan politics out of this idiots. it is just old rhetoric and im tired of it, you make no sense. speak to the trashpickup. i personally would rather take my own trash to the dump once a week. I am for choice. To rockenvironetwork, um trash isnt included in our taxes? hello, they are city workers, that means they get govt checks, which means.....drumroll..... they are paid by some sort of tax that we all pay. my gosh are you kidding me? what i love is some people are fine with a 40 dollar garbage fee, 15-30% water price hikes, but there is no WAY on this earth that they would ever get behind a small tax levy to make sure the schools are proprely funded. some in this city are a friggin joke. "I shouldnt have to pay for anything , govt is spending too much, waaahhhh!!!" , seriously you tax whiners make my head hurt. 40 bucks for trash? another 40-50bucks for water? maybe 100 bucks fore schools? so like another say 200 bucks a year in taxes and fees to ensure that janesville is a quality place to live? no problems here. i wish that some of the tax whiners would move to loow tax states like oklahoma, or louisiana and tell me what the quality of life is there. terrible, no services or bad ones anyways, lowly ranked education, and unsanitary water. you want to know the worst places to live in this country line it up next to the list of the lowest taxed states, bet youll find some real similarities. I personally am tired of the garbage men taking like a half hour break in front of my house. other than that they are fine and so is the city, they are doing what they can with what theyve got, considering GM left we are doing much better than a lot of other cities that have lost car plants.

Garbage and recycling collection is included in my rent. If I were a home owner, I'd find a way to budget in $40 a year. It sounds reasonable.

$10 per quarter is hardly a hardship when you see people spending almost that much per day on Starbucks, cigarettes, fast food and other non-essentials. I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just telling you what I see. I know not everyone drinks expensive coffees, smokes or eats out daily but it kinda puts it into perspective how easily $10 could be saved. Yes, it's hard times for some. Yes, that $40 could make the difference between buying some groceries or fueling a vehicle... but it could be done.

I've been there twice since the last blog on here made a stink about them not checking IDs. They have closely checked me both times.

Maybe they should actually charge non residents at the landfill. I know everytime I've been there, they never even check my ID that the sign says to have out.

Wow, no anti-Obama comments in a few hours. Oh, that's right, it is time for prime time FoxNews. This story is about collection fees in Janesville, WI. What does that have to do with national office or national politics? Hornet makes a good suggestion on decreasing the amount of trash needing hauling to the landfill. In this beautiful season of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables, I buy a good share of my groceries fresh from the stands. No packaging, no waste, lots of good taste.

gonefishin: I'd like to see you try bringing everything back the way it was before Bush and his administration ruined this country. Obama kept telling everyone that things would not get fixed overnight. But alas, we are so spoiled that we want instant gratification.

Change your buying habits...change what types of packaging you buy. If everyone would cut back on packaging/stuff, the landfills would be less full, the trucks could get their pickups made faster... the world would be a nicer place...

I think it should be a choice. If we don't want to pay for the fee, we can drop off our own trash. Sorry, but the city keeps imposing more fees, more stupid projects, etc. when alot of people are out of work.. Why is it no one is focusing on bringing good paying jobs here to Janesville instead of focusing on ways to make people pay more. And now we have to look at our electric bills going up yet again. Yep, money must grow on trees!

Every home out of the city limits and farms has to pay a private vendor to pick up there garbage. We don't hear them making all this noise about having to pay to have it hauled away. I don't see why the people of Janesville has anything to complain about having there garbage picked up free for the past 20 yrs. It's time you pay for this service as well.

TJ: I can guarantee you that MadeInUSA is NOT Rep. Sheridan.

Don't most apartment buildings (not including houses split into numerous apartments) use private services to empty their dumpsters?

I have a private garbage company that picks up two cans and my recycling every week. I pay $14 a month for this service and I'm very happy with them.

Paperboy-Still licking your wounds from my previous posts I see.

ybov, Thanks for spelling it out for some of the bloggers who don't give much thought to their post.

Point of information....over 20 years ago homeowners in Austin, Minnesota (south-central) did not have a municipal trash pick-up. All residents contracted with 1 of 4 different haulers at an average of $300 annually for the basic level of garbage pick-up (i.e. 2 cans/week). Any more was assessed more. All haulers picked up on different days so neighborhoods had trash containers on the curb of various properties throughout the week. All recycling was hauled by the homeowner to a central disposal site.

MadeinUSA- Bill Truman never received a truck from the city. Anything he owns he paid for. Stop trying to start rumors Mr. Sheridan.
tbov- Thanks for your experience, I hadn't thought about the apartments.

MadeinUSA. Can you explain your comment about Bill Truman. Are you suggesting he received a personal vehicle?

Exactlly we let everyone and their brother dump in our landfill. I don't think their garbage is our problem. Make them build their own landfill!!

Perhaps they should give back all the brand new (18) GM pick-up trucks the City of Janesville bought , including the one Bill Truman got, even though he is "without a job or home".!?

The problem is, that people think that our garbage pick up is free, or included in our taxes. It isn't. It costs a lot of money to have trucks and personnel picking up trash, so first, we have to get rid of that thought. Residents haven't paid for our own garbage pick up since the early 1990's, because the former City Manager thought it would be a great idea to bring "other people's garbage" into our community, and charge them. Other people's trash has paid for our pick up fees. The problem with this scenario, is that instead of just paying .77 cents per WEEK, we have taken ownership of other's trash FOREVER. Most people would rather have paid the .77 and reserved the landfill space for residents' use, since it is residents that pay to close and open a new landfill. Nothing is free. Post closure care on the landfill is for 40 years, but that trash will be there forever. Who will pay to care for the landfill after the 40 years is up?

TJ the every other week does not work, we did that in our town, once it went 3 weeks, the smell was bad and you have apt buildings and houses that had no place to put it and was left outside all over, plus animals get into it. We have 10 dollars extra a month put on our water bill now to pay for our trash pickup. This is another state then wis.

Personally I favor the idea of every other week pick-up. This could cut the cost in half. You would need less trucks, less personnel, and less time.

How about the city make their trash drivers actually work a 8 hour day? They get paid for 8 hours but they seem to finish routes early every day. I seem them dumping their trucks at 1:00 - 1:30 every day when they start work at 7:00 am.
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How about they city raise it's tipping fees? The landfill fees are so low that it gets trash from a wide area OUTSIDE of Rock County. They claim that the fees are on average with other landfills but the city lowers the fee per ton when a contractor/municipality will guarantee that they will bring them more trash. Less trash will mean the need for less landfill employees/equipment.
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How about the city look into contracting out trash collection. Most of the time a private company is more efficient then a government agency when doing the same job.
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Why don't we single stream now? When a recycle truck dumps at JRC all the co-mingle collected is dumped into the same pile as the single stream from other companies. Only the paper is kept separate. The savings from a quicker, more streamlined collection process would far outway the little revenue generated from keeping it separated. Also the same trucks could be used too, new equipment is NOT needed to take advantage of single-stream collection.

Hopefully they will let people opt out if they don't want trash collection. I could personally transport all the trash my household generates to the dump for far less than $40 a year. On second thought, it would probably just encourage certain people to burn their trash to save $40.
Another idea: Fine people who don't put their trash in secure containers if they leave it out overnight. It takes extra time for the collectors to clean up the mess from the animals getting into it. Plus it looks bad because the collector cant always get every last bit, it's form of littering, IMO.

When will the city understand that this is not the time to keep adding on fees. First in Jan the water went up, the school board is proposing an increase on taxes to cover their budget, and finally the possibility of a garbage fee? I have been on a wage freeze since 2008. Money must grow on trees.