By Kate Callen / May 30, 2025
San Diegans have just 10 days to submit written protests to the City Clerk about proposed trash fees for residential properties.
For the price of a postage stamp, property owners can register their disgust with one of the most wretched City Hall scams in recent memory. If voters had known the truth in 2022 – that new trash collection services would cost $53 a month – Proposition B would have been defeated.
Instead, it narrowly passed, thanks to a much lower estimate of $23 to $29 a month from the City’s Independent Budget Analyst (IBA). In a May 5 Union-Tribune article headlined “San Diego Trash Fee Collection Was Riddled With Errors,” the IBA said its faulty work was “an honest mistake based on some bad information and some miscalculations.”
Jordan More, the IBA analyst responsible for the miscalculation, had this to say: “Mea culpa – I am human.” He is also well compensated. According to Transparent California, the City paid More $248,117.68 in total pay and benefits in 2023.
To block the trash fees, more than 50 percent of property owners must cut out and mail back a small form to register a protest. The form is buried in a 6-page circular mailed to property addresses.
Does a successful majority protest vote seem highly improbable? Yes. Does that mean it’s not worth the effort? Not at all. City Hall is counting on a very low number of registered protests. Anything past 25 percent will be an unpleasant surprise.
And a legal challenge by five homeowners represented by the formidable Mike Aguirre could make the protest vote moot. The plaintiffs contend that city officials are violating Proposition 218, a 30-year-old state measure that bars government agencies from charging more for services than the actual delivery costs.
But the focus now is on voter turnout. On Saturday, May 31, a Mission Hills drive-up “Trash Fee Vote!” event will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. outside the Mission Hills Fabric Center, 1604 West Lewis. Blank protest slips will be available. Event sponsors will deliver completed slips to the City Clerk on Monday, June 2.
If any other communities are holding similar events to get out the trash fee protest vote, please post a comment with all the details to this story. Let’s do this.
Homeowners have been acting like theyre getting unfairly screwed by the city over this. A different view is that residents who live in multifamily dwellings like condos and apartments, which are around half the city population, (and disproportionally lower income than property owners)have long been paying for private companies to pick up their trash, its funded by a portion of their rent paid to landlords. Currently homeowners trash pickup is paid for by the citys general fund, which the multifamily citizens also support with revenues. IMO the homeowners have been getting a free ride, partially on the backs of poorer residents in rental units who have always had to pay for their own trash pickup. Just my opinion, not sure Ive seen this sentiment come up much in the debate.
And one more time, totally off topic, found on the DA website that Troy Andrew Scholder’s sentencing in now on 6/6,
The scheme that development has to include very low-income housing does not take into account the smaller, older rental units that are being demolished that already have more units than those being provided. And, are you surprised, WHO will wind up paying the $50.+ trash pickup fee we are facing? Sorry to say, our existing renters will see rent increases that yes, they might not otherwise get or that might actually go for improvements in a former San Diego rental market.