Hey...I have an idea. Why hasn't any of that 9 trillion dollars been given to us to create more jobs in the snow plowing department? I guess it's Obama's fault our streets aren't plowed!

ohmygosh1000...I did your research for you - the city tax on a hotel room in Janesville is 8%(total tax is 13.5%); and currently 37% of the money collected from that city tax goes towards the Janesville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the remaining 63% goes towards the city’s general fund. The general fund is where police, fire protection, parks, snowplowing and street maintenance are funded. I don’t know what the actual dollar amount is collected from the tax, but it is a city tax.

ohmygosh1000...you need to call a hotel within the city limits and ask them what percent the "local" sales tax is...

It all boils down to... if you want your street plowed, you are GOING TO have to
deal with the snow at the bottom of your driveway!
If you want your road plowed so you can get out of your driveway...
guess what...Deal with it!!
If you don't want to deal with it, move somewhere that it doesn't snow!!
This is WISCONSIN! It snows, they plow, you clean up.
I repeat THIS IS WISCONSIN! DEAL WITH IT,
or go somewhere else, where you won't have to "deal with the snow"!
Wisconsin in winter...
You may NOT have your cake and eat it too!!

noteworthy . . . only counties have the ability in Wisconsin to establish a local sales tax.

villa . . . who do you have in mind?

Don't know: sucks that the plows fill in the driveway after I shovel, I will say that sucks. But the plows don't have time to go slower--slower they go the less they get plowed. Can't have it both ways.

I live in town now, but I grew up in the country, out in Avon township. We usually got plowed out the day after it snowed, no matter if it was 4 inches or 12. We just kinda got used to it. It's snow. It'll eventually melt. Until that point, we had to take extra time to get to school or work: no plow meant we just had to deal with it.

This year, same as last, we'll all just have to deal with it. Even my jerk neighbor who plows his driveway into the front end of my car that's parked on the street will have to deal with it.

It's Wisconsin: land of beer, cheese, and a lot of snow.

Finally: real winters.......

City services are essential for maintaining a desirable and safe community. The city council should consider adding a local .5% sales tax to help cover the cost of snowplowing and other city services.

I love it (not) when I see snow plows driving around with the plow up. Talk about wasting fuel and wages. And the majority of the time if they aren't plowin they aren't salting either. So may be cutting wasteful driving around would help.

Apparently the Gazette doesn't like the "b" word. So I'll simply use the term "whiners" (you know who you are).

Gazette's asking the wrong question because if you tax more for snow removal, you HAVE TO give up something else - there is no longer an option thanks to the local levy limits enacted by your state government. Seems the folks at the state level feel they know what's best for us locals.

So come on whiners: what will you give up? Can't use the museum 'cause we don't have it. Can't use the bike tunnel 'cause it doesn't relate to the levy limits.

We'll see a hundred different answers. It's the dilemma of all politicians. Who should they listen to? I sure hope it's not the vocal minority on this stupid question.

PLOW THE STREETS? I just wonder where they get off saying that they plow the streets, my street has been plowed once since it started snowing this year, and they dont plow it they skim it. and then have the nerve to give out tickets if you get in an accident. my only complaint is that they should lower the plow and really plow the street.

People need to slow down and learn to drive. I get nervous when I have a bunch of cars on my back. I get passed a lot to see them swerve front of me to get in a wreck or ditch. Everyone can have a accident once in a while but I feel 80% of the time people drive to fast.

Last year and this year have been anomolies as far as normal snowfall is concerned. We've seen close to our normal seasonal snowfall in December alone. I think it would be foolish to jack up the budget too much for winters which are anomolous and aren't likely to happen more than a few times a every 50 years. An increase, perhaps, but when we go back to normal winters there'll be a huge surplus.

I will say it again: Janesville has snowplows??? You wouldn't know it by my street! and we live right off Milton, which, btw, looks and drives terrible this morning! I read an earlier article too that said they only planned the same amount of money for snowplowing as they did last year (2008). How does that make sense? Prices go up for everything not to mention it wasn't ennough last year!! How bright are our city officials for all that wise planning?? But let's look at an unneeded tunnel or childrens museum! Yeah, that makes sense even if we can't plow our streets!!

i remember once last year when i was putting the finishing touches on the driveway end where the mail box is. (whatever happened to the mail mans slogan, through rain, sleet, snow etc. all but snow. whatever the mood is.)when the plows came through and almost knocked me over with his rate of speed and the push of the snow at me, a raised finger would have been to good for him. besides, next time through he would have pushed the snow up to my front door.

wmnewlin you made a good point. Theres more to this as well. I used to live in Hoffman Estates IL. We had to buy Garbage stickers for $1.50. Recycling was encouraged. And most people had garbage compactors. Good old common sence was used. You paid for what you used. What does this have to do with snowplowing nothing, but I liked your comment. Less government more common sence. Kudos to ncpanfan for helping your neighbor. Others should follow your example and quit whinning.

Mrsjoe: You call the city public works department. We had a neighbor who did it all the time and the last time he used a work truck to plow his driveway and proceeded to push it all the way across the street and dump it on our side. Now mind you if he had put it up on our grass I couldn't have cared less but no he dumps it in a pile in the street by the curb that we already cleaned ourselves after the plow went through. We have to do this every time to keep the drain open, learned that lesson the hard way last year when it all froze into ice and we spent an entire weekend working on breaking it all up. This neighbor has a drain on his side of the street too but never cleaned it out, just piled more of his snow from his driveway out into the street to go with the other. -
Thekai: We too do extra. We live by an alley so we clean our end all the time to make it easier to get in and out to park. The other end is a disaster, the people who live on that end throw their snow into the alley. It is more work and sure it bites that the other neighbors who live by us benefit from it and NEVER help but oh well it is easier for us to do the extra 2 hours of work and not get stuck.-
I do have to say that I did get mad last year when I finished shoveling the end of the alley out and then the plows came through and he saw what I was doing and instead of picking up the blade for that short area he kept it down and filled the end right back in so yep I had to spend another hour shoveling it back out. :)Oh well what are you gonna do??

We also help our elderly neighbor keep his sidewalk and driveway cleaned up..

MRSJOE...I think you are on to something! Of course these plow drivers do everything out of spite. There is that who's been naughty and who's been nice list they abide by you know. THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT things to worry about then how many times your stinkin' mailbox gets knocked over. If it is that big of a deal, and costing you THAT much money, rent a PO box for the winter then. BE PRO-ACTIVE.

What about a choice that they can do a better job with the same money? Why, for example, does Milton Avenue have snow in the middle of the lanes? Would one more pass cost them more money? I doubt it.

Maybe the snowplow driver hates you?

thekai:
I guess you did not read my response about the mailman telling us where to put the mailbox. We used to have it closer to the curb, but the mailman had us move it back further away from the curb. We never had any problem when it was closer to the street. Maybe the person who plowed is new on our street because there were several mailboxes that were destroyed by the plow. Don't always assume that it is the homeowners fault.

How is a war and snowplowing even remotely connected? The federal government is now in control of our snow plowing in Janesville Wisconsin?

dkush,
If you keep putting a mailbox in the same place and it keeps getting knocked down, I am more inclined to say that is your own fault for not being able to learn from your mistakes. If we had drunken drivers operating the snow plows and they kept missing the street, then sure, get mad. That's not the case though. You need to adjust where your mailbox is. It sucks, but you can get over it. I live in a house on the corner of a street, so I have to shovel twice as much as most people. It sucks. I got over it. You just need to adapt and over come. It's not that hard.

The snowplow - yada yada yada - A mechanical device used to fill in the end of your driveway as soon as you are done shoveling it.

There's an endless amount of money for the war, yet no money for a snowplow job? hmmm. Oh, and if the people who blew the snow into my street AFTER the snowplow came yesterday are reading this... ARE YOU FRICKIN' STUPID!!!!???? Who do I complain to about that?

why not impose user fees on everything and get rid of local taxes all together. You might as well pay for what you want. You want your street plowed, get together with your neighborhood and hire someone.

If we have a light winter... the surplus should be kept in an emergency fund, maybe even invested in a 6 month investment for the next year of snow plowing. If the budget is always wrong - then we need to adjust it higher and pay for it.

At no point should snow removal be cut just because we have more snow days than were budgeted. I think we just need better long term money management.

hannah: Good idea! Or maybe I should just put a brick wall around the mailbox so if they hit it, there will be a large dent in the plow.
thekai: I don't have a cheap mailbox, unfortunately I have one of those over $50.00 plastic ones. And the mailman came by while my husband was digging up the spot for the mailbox and he showed him where to put it.

First, the street get plowed in efficient time, why change something that isn't broken? Obviously there are some impatient people that think they take presidence to other's, but whatever system and manpower they have, works, leave it alone. Maybe we could get some volunteers out there.....hmmmm????? Next, if people expect the things they do out of their community, then I sure hope they are respectible citizens and do what is expected of a valued resident as well.

The city should just get back to the real world and use common sense in this down economy. Let's take care of our streets on a timely way, cut the grass in the parks the same way. Give us our Police and Fire protection and water service and garbage pickup. We can not keep spending money like drunken sailors on Tunnels, Childrens museums, water parks and skate board parks. Please back to the basics before we are all broke.

What do they do with the money they don't use from winters that it doesn't snow much? They should put it in the fund for the next year. We have only had heavy snowfalls last year and the beginning of this winter.

Hannah brings up a good point.
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Imagine the make money fast scheme if you could buy a $15 mailbox and set it out a little further than it should be, so it can be easily broken by a snow plow, and then you get $50. Maybe the lesson to be learned here is to re-locate or modify the mailbox... or maybe I'm just crazy

Got an idea here. What about taking all the money that is collected for tickets from those who do not move their cars off the roads, as well as fining those who push snow back into a cleared road (supposedly this is against the law) and putting that money into the budget for overages. I bet right now the Police Department just collects the money. If the snow plow drivers have to plow around vehicles that people don't move that money should go for plowing budgets. Just an idea.

should not cut other services. in the furture might need that money for what is is specified for then some one will say hey where is that money and how do we replace it?

It's a more efficient use of the excess money to put it back into the general fund, which I believe is the historical practice. In most years there isn't a problem, even when they go a little over, because they can "steal" a little bit from next year's budget since winter straddles fiscal years. It's only when we get these tough December winters right in a row that it's really a problem.
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That said, I think I agree with the assessment that the city doesn't plow quite as much as some other jurisdictions, but if the city wants more plowing the voters should be willing to pay for it.

good point dhoflowe - I wonder where the money that was earmarked in the budget went in the years when we didn't have all this wonderful snow.

I feel that the city should be more on top of the financial end of things. When you have several years that you did not use all the funds for snow plowing, you should put in a fund for a rainy day when you need the extra money for the plowing that needs to be done. It is all about safety, not whether we should plow or not because we don't have the money.

Cut other services and only give them more money for plowing only if everytime they bust your mailbox when plowing, they replace it. I called public works and twice in two weeks they busted my mailbox. They tell me they will only reimburse $50.00 a year for a mailbox. What happens when they come around again and knock down or bust my mailbox? Do I have to pay for it every time they break it? It's not my responsibility, it's the city's.

Try being a postal,paper,pizza,ups,fed ex....whatever kind of carrier there is.You have no choice but to drive these roads.Thank God for 4 wheel drive !!

*Unless they crash.

Each time it snows, different areas are affected differently. The city plows can only be in so many places at one time.
There is only so much money but if you can predict how much you will need to spend, the city needs your expertice. It's snow, it melts. Also, Since when did snow stop people from going where they want to go? It only slows them down, not stop them.

Here's how I see it...no matter what decision is made, some people are going to be unhappy about it. They might as well be unhappy for the least amount of money.

The city should sponsor a contest on "Who has the worst "plowed" street".