Of all the decisions that the San Diego City Council has made of late, none have suffered the derision and mockery that the go-ahead to spend $4 to $5 million for a consultant to study how much the city should charge for trash pick-up has.
The mid-March decision by a 7 to 1 vote of the council will pay as much as $4.5 million to determine how much single-family homes in the city should be charged for trash and recycling services. And consultant HDR Engineering will be paid to conduct a study.
Councilmember Raul Campillo cast the lone “no” vote and said then he thought the city would be paying too much. “That’s incredibly high. In my opinion, it looks like it’s too much to get a sense of what customers want.”
Rene Robertson, who oversees city trash and recycling for the city, said the contract is unusually expensive because San Diego has been providing trash and recycling for free to single-family homes for decades, so customers have never been asked what they actually want. “What’s included in this contract is much more than just a normal cost-of-service study. This is the first time. This is a historic moment for San Diego.”
Yet, if San Diego had its own late-night comedy show, this decision would be a topic night after nights, for weeks. Just about every week since, there’s been a letter to the editor at the UT making fun of it.
Days after the decision, one Del Cerro resident wrote:
“The stream of high-priced consultants San Diego hires to investigate mundane problems like potholes ($500,000 in January) and now trash pickup ($4.5 million) reminds me of the “atmospheric river” that deluged San Diego and Southern California. These consultant contracts are a “financial river” funneling our tax dollars into their pockets. What a waste!”
Another local resident wrote:
“$4.5 million to basically figure out how much to charge for trash pickup? I’ll do it for $50,000, give them something they will actually read, and laugh all the way to the bank. Ridiculous! This is what comes from having the mayor, who has absolutely zero management training, as your city manager.
Practically every city in the world and every trash company has already figured it out! I’ll ask them, or simply put the question to ChatGPT for $6.95, while we all drive over potholes on flooded streets.”
I chuckled when I read another letter writer who said, ‘forget the consultant and have city staff call around to other cities in the county and see what they charge.’
Now that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Especially with a large city budget deficit.
Oh, Robertson also noted that the contract is for $3.6 million in services, as about $900,000 more is included to defend the city from potential lawsuits challenging its rates, but she said that money won’t be spent if none are filed. That fills me with confidence, I don’t know about you.
The U-T tells us, any such lawsuits are expected to be based on California’s Proposition 218, which bars government agencies from charging more for a service than it costs to provide.
Other details from the original David Garrick March 12 article:
- San Diego is able to start charging single-family homes for trash and recycling because city voters approved Measure B in November 2022.
- The contract includes nearly $1.7 million for more than 7,000 hours of community outreach, which will include meetings in multiple languages and other efforts to gather input;
- future cost-of-service studies for trash will include much less aggressive outreach,
- the contract also includes $670,000 to study whether the city is efficiently collecting trash and recycling now, and how it could improve.
- The city expects to collect about $80 million in new annual revenue once nearly 300,000 single-family home customers start paying monthly trash and recycling fees in summer 2026.
- Other issues for the consultant to consider are whether the city should add new services, such as regular pickups for bulky trash and hazardous waste, or shift recycling pickups from every two weeks to every week.
- A potentially larger challenge will be designing a “pay-as-you-throw” program that would mean lower bills for people who produce less trash and higher bills for those who produce the most trash. City officials say such a program will help achieve San Diego’s goal of net-zero waste by 2035.
I have two thoughts on this. First, the city is paying for trash collection now. If they don’t know how much it costs, then there is even greater incompetence in our city then I ever imagined. All the costs, including administrative costs (excepting billing costs) should be known. Divide those by the number of households. The only unknown is the cost of billing and collecting, which should be pretty easy to figure our since the city collects for water, sewer, etc., and should have lots of experience.
In terms of what I want? I want someone to come around at regular intervals, empty my bins and take the materials away. Is there something else I’m missing?
The first image that came to my mind when I read your comment, Paul, was Homer Simpson slapping his forehead and saying, Doh!” An intelligent person reads this news, plainly seeing the obvious would-be solution, and wonders, what am I missing? This is a ridiculous expense to get information they should already have.
Well if the city expects 300K homes to generate $80 million annually, that sounds like $22.25 a month. There, do I get the $4.5M now?
Paul, Another spot on comment. Thank you for being able to articulate what the rest of us are thinking.
It sounds more like they want the services of a magician, not a consultant, so they can stick as many fees as possible to the homeowner.
This is an hysterical moment, not an historical one.
A real knee-slapper.
Way to go with our tax dollars, city!
This trash study fee thing should be forwarded to all the late night comedians on national TV.
So sad, money could be used to reduce beginning trash fees.
Laughable but sooo sad.
I am dumbstruck that San Diego voters actually asked to be billed for something that until now was paid for by the taxes we pay the city.
Never underestimate the stupidity of your neighbor.
Wait… they told me the trash pickup was free. For years I have been giving the drivers fresh baked cookies and gift cards to reward their committment to volunteerism. But maybe the mayor was actually paying for it? Now I will have to figure out if he is gluten-free.
With $1.7 million for about 7,000 hours of community outreach, that’s $243 per hour. A normal work year is 2080 hours. So that would give about 3 1/2 employees a salary for a year of about $500,000. Sign me up!”
For the price of a six pack of Coronado Brewing Orange Witt, I will suggest
the City starts at $12.55 per month for residential service. Service price will
rise two per cent every two years with a cap of the price after a decade (ten years). San Diego residents may pay in six month installments: $75.30 every six months.
No hidden fees
No sur charges
No convenience fees
No credit card surcharges
No extra tax
No Ticketmaster/Live nation rip offs
No consulting fees; council members do their own fucking homework.
With an egalitarian payment system, all residents are equal.
With what you’re describing, Washington DC would dry up and stop
being one of the richest areas in the country.
Think of all the lobbyists, lawyers, influencers, schmoozers who would be out of work.
Think of all the fancy restaurants that would go out of business.
Think of the terrible traffic on the Beltway easing up.
What would our elected officials do without all these advisors and
syncophants?
An egalitarian payment system would never work. The rich should pay the majority of this trash fee, the working middle class should pay a discounted rate, and the poor/disabled/elderly/POC should pay nothing due to a lifetime of systemic oppression and well, you know, the patriarchy.
With this new payment scheme, a new city department of trash pickup pricing and verification needs to be established.
Usage based billing works for water, why would it not work for trash?
Anyways it sounds like Proposition 218 would prohibit this.
But to your delight we might be paying gas & electric based on income. Which seems like a crime. Some type of low-income safety net seems wise, but this sliding scale for the same services just seems criminal and ripe for abuse. They already have discount programs for low income households.
KH, whoever you are, are you suggesting that we start weighing our trash? Pass the trash through a trash meter? This is just a silly comment.
I do agree with you regarding the income based electric facilities charge, particularly in the way it was passed – as a rider bill on the budget bill with no discussion, no analysis as to its effects and no scrutiny whatsoever. Bills that have this level of impact on people should get a little more daylight. As opposed to the “none” it was given. Thank you very much, Senator Weiner.
I suppose it’s possible with some truck upgrades, but a per bin rate is much closer to consumption-based than per-income. Do wealthy retired couples generate more trash than a middle income family of 5? I don’t think so.
KH, what does wealth have to do with anything? Does a middle class or financially disadvantaged retired couple generate more, or less, trash that a wealthy retired couple?
Not everything needs to be described or explained in class struggle terms.
truck upgrades LMAO, weights and measures will be hiring trash truck weight calibrators, talk about bureaucracy.
Sean Elo Rivera’s campaign paid for mailers deliberately lying to San Diegans about the measure. Now he needs the consultants to reimburse his campaign for the disinformation campaign he launched to screw San Diegans.
https://laprensa.org/SDtrashtax
With corrupted representatives like this who needs enemies?
BTW illegal trash dumping in our canyons has increased exponentially already and we haven’t even started paying for the service that has always been included in our exhorbitant property taxes .
How exactly does this contribute to illegal dumping here? I did not think residents could opt-out of this one. And who dumps trash proactively of a fee? Large multifamily and non-res have always been required to fund their own trash service.
I know in smaller cities it can be a driving factor for illegal dumping.
Property taxes that go up automatically every year. Ever time they say affordable housing, remember the policies they enact that erode that dog pile mantra.
excellent comment. mateo you are on the mark . unlike the comments above yours that dont mind being fleeced by illegal fees that the city officials decided they need them to pay,
It baffles my mind how people cant see the fraud a mile away.
never trust known liars about anything especially your money.
election fraud passing the trash fees after taking over a month to count the votes in their favor.
who didnt see that coming? so who counted them and how do we hold them accountable for tampering with election results? In my mind this is treason.
I highly doubt anyone in this world would voltarily vote to pay more taxes.
solutions
tell city to piss up a rope
opt out.
hard labor for city officials involved with this.
pensions lost,. wages cut or a 9×5 with bubba.
new vote with paper ballots and oversight, votes counted same day. or shine the whole idea
abolish property taxes altogether
i dont have kids and tired of payng taxes for schools.
,
adding fees to property taxes seems like a really bad idea, might suggest a property grab tax liens,
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this dilemma of determining the cost of something we are all already paying for.
Anyways congratulations to the consultant that secured this sweetheart deal.
Perhaps next we can secure a consultant to determine what we should be paying consultants.
I still think this city should have followed our city constitution, This council
Keeps changing things that make no sense,
Spending millions to paint new lines on streets to get us out of cars. Hasn’t worked. City not designed for bikes, spread out with hills, Few weekender bikes even seen in those special bike lanes yet they cant pave roads first. Then how many millions for OB Pier? This city is easy to pay off. They do not put the good of the entire city first.
I have not touched my “green” can. Won’t until I know the price. If they charge me, I want it removed from my property taxes. NO DOUBLE DIPPING in my wallet!!!!!!!’
What’s the deal with HDR Engineering?
Was it a no -bid contract?
Maybe the mayor will tell us, or maybe sleuths will find out.
We already pat too much in Taxes!! & They waste what we pay. Please say No on Trash charges! Don’t make San Diego to be ashamed of being part of Taxifornia!! Too many changes for the residents of San Diego+Stress on the people who Vote!!
Say No on Trash charges! Don’t confuse San Diego with Taxifornia!!