Large item pickup gets a mascot
Photo 
Kelly Lee
Photo
The monkey
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Televisions, mattresses and furniture were among the items piles up outside a home on north Pearl Street during large item pickup day in the Court Street corridor on Saturday.
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Jason Stout of the City of Janesville Streets Department, picks up a large pile of tires and moves them into a large dumpster outside JW Transfer near Five Points during large item pickup day in the Court Street corridor on Saturday.
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Janesville Sanitation workers Matt Teubert, left, and Josh Running load the shell of a giant television into the back of a truck during large item pickup day in the Court Street corridor on Saturday.
JANESVILLE — The kiln will become scrap metal.
The tires will go to a special landfill.
And the monkey will get a new home.
On Saturday, city staff and volunteers from Janesville’s Neighborhood Action Teams, the Westgate Corridor Group, the Young Professionals and a variety of local businesses joined together for a large item pickup in the Fourth Ward and Look West neighborhoods.
It’s the fifth year for the event, which is designed to help clean up these two neighborhoods, and it has been a success.
“The neighborhoods do look cleaners and neater,” said Margaret Delaney, member of the Neighborhood Action Team. “People are beginning to take pride in their surroundings.”
Its success also means “scrappers”—people who collect and sell scrap metal—have horned in on the action. Items such as appliances disappeared into the back of pickup trucks before crews could get to them.
“We were going to use that money to offset some of the costs for the program,” said Kelly Lee, neighborhood development specialist. “But the point is to get things cleaned up.”
The two neighborhoods were divided up into six zones, and item-specific teams were sent out into each of the zones. Some teams were responsible for tires, others for electronics, and still others for items such as scrap metal or furniture.
It was the Marling Lumber flatbed that brought back the monkey.
Actually, to be scientifically correct, it’s an orangutan—but that’s not the point.
The Marling Lumber team was in charge of scrap metal, and it did find some. The guys loaded up a several-hundred-pound pottery kiln the scrappers missed—or found too heavy to lift.
Carey Stuckey, a Marling salesman, said “Jerry” made him stop the truck for the monkey.
Jerry who?
“I don’t know. Jerry the monkey grabber,” Stuckey replied.
The “monkey grabber” turned out to be Jere Johnson, director of radiology and oncology services at Mercy Hospital.
“I thought I saw some scrap metal on him,” Johnson said.
On the next run, the Marling team, which included Stuckey, Johnson, dentist Kevin O’Leary and Marling’s Jake Weissbuch, extended their kindness to the human species.
Along with picking up assigned items, the guys helped a resident in the 300 block of High Street with a sofa and a chair that were disintegrating on her back porch.
As a couple of barefoot kids watched, the team heaved the damp furniture onto the flatbed.
“It’s a pretty neat thing they do,” Stuckey said of the large item pickup. “It’s good for people who are stuck without a truck, or for older people who don’t know what to do with some of these things.”
As for the monkey, he’ll be washed and brushed and then promoted to large item pickup mascot.
Look for him at next year’s event.
Oct 8, 2009 at 6:59 a.m.
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"So, it breaks down into 2 groups; a.) Those of us who take care of it and pay for it ourselves, and b.) The tenants of the 4th Ward who have somebody else do it for them AND don't pay for it, the taxpayers do? "
I could not agree more!!!!!!
Oct 5, 2009 at 10:23 p.m.
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this program has been going for 5years,it shows how the property owners are using the system. why haul the junk, when they can have a nice group of volunteers and city employees to do for them. dont forget the city employees are being paid overtime. its just one big circle, clean up,collect and clean up and this has going on for 5 years and it will continue until the city starts to issue clean up orders to property owners. like i stated earlier, it time to move on to other areas and let the 4th ward property owners haul their own junk away or face the conseques
Oct 5, 2009 at 6:25 p.m.
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So the Poor areas of town" so to speak should get more help that the rest of the town? I live in a good part of town, not bad not great, but I dont get curbside pick up for my trash. When we had to get rid of large items we had to get ahold of friends with trucks to come help us.
Oct 5, 2009 at 3:13 p.m.
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I think the people in nicer neighborhoods see this as a kind of convenience for the odd item that's too big to throw in the back seat or trunk. In the central city neighborhoods, though, piles of trash had become a common nuisance contributing to blight, reducing the attractiveness of the neighborhoods and attracting crime.
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I know as a landlord we seem to accumulate an average of about one tire per tenant. Count all the odd popped-spring sofas and rusting grills from three tenants back and it adds up.
Oct 5, 2009 at 2:48 p.m.
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great work to all that volunteered their time to help clean up. grey ghost and your supports...really? giving people in our community volunteered their time to help clean up our struggling neighborhoods and you have a complaint about that huh? ever heard the saying "no good deed goes unpunished?" I think the expression you should be looking for here is "thank you" not, "why not me".
Oct 5, 2009 at 10:18 a.m.
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Tires are recycled. The dumpster is just to hold them for the scrap hauler (but there is a huge oversupply in any case).
Oct 5, 2009 at 9:56 a.m.
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I thought tires were recycled now a days?
Oct 5, 2009 at 7:51 a.m.
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gray_ghost - Im with ya!!
Oct 5, 2009 at 7:43 a.m.
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grey_ghost, I second the motion.
Oct 4, 2009 at 11:59 p.m.
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the city should offer the same service to the rest of the city also,its about time the 4th ward people realize, it time to haul their junk, like the rest of janesville. how many years have they been doing this project? its time to move on, to other areas of janesville.
Oct 4, 2009 at 11:51 p.m.
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A photo of the mascot would have been nice... given that the title of the story.
I echo Janesvillean's sentiments, a great service for a needy part of town benefits everyone.
Oct 4, 2009 at 7:10 p.m.
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This was another great event and we should remember the yeoman service of Bill Truman in getting it off the ground. I only wish we could have put out more stuff (we have a trailer, but nothing to pull it with at the moment).
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The "pickers" were definitely cruising around from lunchtime Friday on, so anything put out that early disappeared quickly. In a sense it doesn't matter who takes it, as once it's on the curb it's legally up for grabs, but it is too bad that the city can't get more reimbursement for its efforts.
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I also understand that there is concern about giving the rest of the city a chance to have one -- or at least designating another neighborhood or two. It does depend on how much the city has in its community development block grant from the federal government.
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