Spring Cleaning: Stow has Permission to Throw Out Old, Broken Items

Over time, junk just accumulates. Imagine not being able to throw away that pile of whatever-it-is in the basement every spring?

 April 26 to legally give the service director the authority to throw things away, it couldn't spring clean!

Service Director Michael Miller said legislation to allow him to throw away items that could not be donated and had no value was necessary for the state auditing process. He said if he threw something like a broken chair away, the auditor might report a finding on the audit. 

"Even with the legislation, we have to track what we throw away for the state audit," he said. "And ... without the legislation, we would have had to hold onto things forever, or at least until someone wanted to take it."

In the past, Stow has never had a finding on audits for throwing things away. 

Mayor Sara Drew said this is the first time the city is cleaning up and throwing away items of no value since 1986 when was built. 

The city still focuses on donating or selling equipment like chairs, old computer monitors and printers before it trashes it, however. 

"We got Goodwill to take away two big 18-wheelers packed with items," said Dale Germano, Stow's manager of information systems. "Under normal circumstances, we'd have to pay someone to take it away."

Germano also mentioned that before any electronic equipment is given away or trashed, the memory is scrubbed clean.