By the SD Union-Tribune Editorial Board / June 27, 2025
As expected, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday [June 24] approved a plan to begin collecting its new monthly fee for trash collection — with a base rate of $43.60 a month — from 226,000-plus single-family homes in lump sums twice a year via property taxes. Approved on a 7-2 vote, it was billed as a cost-saving measure that would avoid $18 million in start-up costs and $10 million in annual operating expenses for an in-house city billing system.
But did the seven supporters take seriously the criticism the plan faced? As Steven Cordova, a North Park retiree who owns a small multi-unit building, wrote for U-T Opinion, “The fee becomes part of the secured tax obligation on your property. If unpaid, it’s treated like a delinquent tax — risking liens, penalties and collections.”
The idea that residents should trust a city coming off 30 years of grievous management errors to handle this task well is hard to believe. Nevertheless, that’s the expectation of Councilmember Joe LaCava, who dismissed the idea that this change could imperil any homeowners.
Raul Campillo, one of the council “no” votes along with Henry Foster, struck the proper note of caution: “I have significant concerns about the impact this method could have on low-income property owners, particularly seniors and homeowners on fixed incomes.”
But while San Diego officials said using property bills to collect municipal fees had worked well in several California cities they cited, this is not necessarily the norm. And the places where there have been problems are cash-strapped municipal governments that are bad at outreach to residents to explain what they need to do to protect themselves. As shown by the city’s (perhaps intentionally) awful efforts to get the word out to residents on how they could block the new trash fee under a 1996 state law, this category very much includes San Diego.
Consider Oakland, where in 2018 voters approved Measure?Q, a parcel tax funding parks, cleanup and homelessness services, and Measure W, imposing a tax of $6,000 per year on vacant parcels. In both cases, city leaders emphasized that exemptions would be available. With Measure Q, low-income households, households with older individuals, schools and some religious organizations qualified. With Measure W, property owners who faced specific circumstances preventing development — common throughout California — were eligible.
But in both cases, such property owners have to go through the exemption-seeking process all over again every year — without getting automatic reminders — part of the reason a local good government group warned that Oakland is asking for headaches. Unsurprisingly, in 2019, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Measure W was causing dread and anger among property owners. The extent of these problems will become more clear when more time passes, as Alameda County typically doesn’t foreclose on homes in default for at least five years.
But Oakland residents who have dealt with decades of incompetence at City Hall shouldn’t have their hopes up. When it comes to trash fee collection, the same very much holds for San Diegans.
It’s hard to know where this will go and how it will end. The 2025-2026 San Diego Treasurer-Tax Collector fiscal year begins today. All property tax bills will start accumulating the monthly charge for the mandatory upfront cost of large bins. At what point those who want to opt for less expensive small bins will be able to do so is unknown, and how they will eventually see this reflected on their property tax account is unknown.
It will be a costly mess.