By Lu Rehling
Really, can it get worse? Yep! Check your mailbox for your county property tax bill and get ready for more bad city trash fee news, even beyond the bait & switch that got us being billed for trash pickup in the first place.
Here’s that news: Even if you requested the lowest-price trash bin combo by the city’s deadline last month, you’re still going to have to pay more for the highest-price “level of service” for a full year. After that, not to worry, you’ll get a credit back for the over-payment. (Unless the city has its fingers crossed behind its back again, that is.) Just don’t expect interest. The city is grabbing your money now and promising to give some back later, after it’s had its way with it.
Of course, maybe you already know all about this charge that surprised me, because you thoroughly read (and managed to understand!) all of the legalese buried in a mailer that you got months ago– before the new trash fees were even approved– and then you saved that mailer for future reference. Or maybe because, like me, you’re one of the many folks who already have been jamming the Waste Management Department’s customer service line asking why they were overcharged.
Here’s the text that explains why you’ve got to pay up now for more than you ordered:
If the customer selected a level of service that differs from the bundle of three 95-gallon containers, the customer will be entitled to a credit or an additional charge for the lower or higher level of service they selected. This credit or additional charge will be applied toward the customer’s 2026-2027 fee.
Like me, you may be hoping that the city will have to back off the trash charges entirely after its upcoming day in court. (For more about that, see The Rag’s Oct. 10 update.) But, at least as it stands now, you had better be sure to pay up full price when your tax bill is due—or else suffer the penalties up to and including having your home sold at
auction.
Of course, there’s nothing about all of this on the insert that comes with your tax bill and also nothing about it on the city mail piece you should have recently received—you know, the one that gives you that special feeling by providing a “unique” 10-letter code for finding out when new bins will be delivered.
However, you still can fact check me on this. I can even save you the twenty-plus minute (mostly on hold) phone call and three tries at the recorded routing tree before getting to a real person (polite, professional, and very careful not to express an opinion, while still making it clear that I was far from the first caller who had been confused by the apparent over-charge on their tax bill).
It’s easy: Just go to the Waste Management Department website and click on “trash fee updates.” Then scroll down to find “mailers, guides, and resources,” and click again. The next step is obvious: Click on “Proposition 218 Public Hearing Notice” (who wouldn’t pick that one, based on its name), choose your language, open the PDF, and then, as the person I spoke to on the phone instructed me, “you have to read the whole thing.” (Hint: The quote above is on page 3.)
And we know whom we can thank for the piece of news that I’m sharing here. Not the country tax collector who’s just the messenger, but our Mayor, who pushed this piece of garbage (pun intended) our way, and our city Councilmembers (all but Raul Campillo and Marni von Wilpert) who approved it.
Lu Rehling is a resident of Hillcrest.
Yeah, I got that “special” feeling from my unique 10-letter code letting me know my smaller, cheaper bin will arrive sometime in early January 2026. Since the SDTTC tax bills arrived, with the full, highest fee for all-large bins, Waste Management is doing everything possible to keep us feeling “special” and from freaking out. January. 2026. Whoopee.
Remember Dan McAllister who was our tax collector until recently until he got slapped with another sexual harassment lawsuit? I met him at an event when he was early in his career & had just paid off his first sexual harassment lawsuit with His own private funds. He attended this event with his daughter, not his wife.
Re. the most recent lawsuit a number of years later. As I understand it, he did not personally pay the $100,000. owed.
My question is: Did the taxpayers make the payout & did the payout come from our homeowners’ taxes? I never heard. Maybe 100k is considered Chuck change & really not worth discussing with the tax-paying homeowners.
Lu, nice work and couldn’t agree more. I think we should all bill the city for a tax refund because of double taxation for the same service. If it looks like a tax and quacks like a tax it is a tax. Before our trash collection was included in our property tax. Now our bill is still the same except we have a new increase for trash collection that we did not vote for. The bait and switch analogy is correct and it’s completely disingenuous for the city to pretend otherwise. So we need to bill the city for the double taxation and take them to small claims court (if other legal remedies don’t work) to collect. Knowing it’s all to punish us for not granting them a tax increase to bail them out of mismanagement of our money…
I’ll bet the rates go up next year as surely lot’s of folks will choose the smaller and midsized trash bin. They’ll have to make up the lost revenue from smaller bins. Maybe they’ve estimated how many will go for the smaller bins, but they’re estimates are probably like the other “estimates” they made on the trash cost analysis, WAY OFF!
My thoughts, exactly!
Yes, of course the rates will increase every year for the next 4 years – it’s in the Notice – it’s what was passed by the City Council. Increased fees per Prop 218 can be scheduled up to 5 years. And then, guess what? We get another Notice of Hearing proposing higher fees for the next 5 years. Which everyone will completely ignore and not show up for, and not send in the Protest form to stop it. And know what else? We are being billed for the $10 million for the “roll out” – the “community engagement”, the “Outreach”, the bogus Notice of Hearing that completely confused and is confusing everybody. It’s in the Cost of Study. Know what else you’re paying for? Doubling its staff in order to provide weekly recycling (instead of bi-weekly); for old Bond debt (unconstitutional: Cal. Const. XIIID, 6 Revenues derived from the fee or charge shall not be used for any purpose other than that for which the fee or charge was imposed Cal. Const. XIIID, sec. 6 (b) (2)); a Reserve Fund (not a parcel service); a pilot program for EV Haulers (not a parcel service); to re-locate the bin operation offsite; to replace all bins with RFID bins, when a label on existing might suffice;
to pay for five new haulers every year so there is a stand-by fleet. The bulky-item pick-up and “free” bin replacement is considered in the fee but many have stated they don’t want it.
Cal. Const. states no stand-by services can be charged (need an election for that – can’t know how much to charge everyone because the number of customers wanting a new bin is unknown). Fraud.