By Kate Callen
Sometimes you can fight City Hall.
A citizens’ lawsuit that once seemed quixotic has compelled the city to scale back the money it collects for its hated trash fees.
The fees will now begin at $38.75 starting July 1, 2027 and will not be raised for two years. Unfortunately, fees will still be collected as an add-on to county property tax bills, so the risk of house foreclosure will remain in place.
For good measure, the city is also giving up its hated parking fees for Balboa Park. Starting January 1, 2027, parking will again be free for all Balboa Park visitors.
The tentative settlement was approved by the City Council in a 7-0 closed session on May 20. The decision was announced hours later in a news conference featuring the strangest political tableau in recent memory.
A radiant Councilmember Stephen Whitburn presided over the news conference. Whitburn said he and Michael Zucchet of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association hammered out the trash fee agreement. They tossed in the parking fees, he said, because “knowing that the same folks calling for repeal of the trash fees were calling for repeal of the Balboa Park parking fees, we saw synergy there.”
“We represent a lot of different people and interests,” said Zucchet, who is arguably now the second most powerful person in San Diego. “But on these issues, we’ve agreed that our city and our community deserve a fair resolution and some certainty moving forward.”
They were joined by former Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who has led the Lincoln Club’s campaign to rescind the trash fees via ballot measure, Council President Joe LaCava, and others in a veritable love fest celebrating their abilities to serve the public.
The real stars of the news conference were the two attorneys who waged the legal fight as a public interest case, which meant they would only be paid if they won – which they did, and they will.
Former City Attorney Mike Aguirre and former Chief Deputy City Attorney Maria Severson, Partner and Managing Partner of Aguirre & Severson LLP, have put their case on hold until June 8, when the Council will meet in open session to formally approve the settlement and to consider revoking the Balboa Park parking fees.
“This is what can be done,” Severson said, “when people care about their community, fight for their community, and do so in a way that reaches compromise.”
A somber Aguirre cautioned that City Hall’s financial management will continue to need watching. “We need to keep a close diligent eye on how [the city] spends money that doesn’t belong to us, that belongs to the public.”
That may now be easier because as part of the settlement, a truly independent audit of city trash collection will determine actual costs, not estimates, and the city will be legally barred from charging more for services that the costs.
Aguirre and Severson spent nearly a year on the lawsuit working closely with a group of plaintiffs who were residents and community advocates. The amount of fees they will collect from the city will likely be determined June 8.
Full disclosure: I am a member of plaintiffs group, and I testified in the case as a plaintiff’s witness. I never expected this outcome. I knew our case had merit – on the facts and the law, it was open-and-shut – but I thought the San Diego city government was beyond all redemption.
How did this improbable result come about? It happened because the relentlessness of public fury has pushed Mayor Todd Gloria to the sidelines of city government. He wasn’t part of the deal, and he was barely mentioned at the press conference.
Gloria will be mayor for 19 more months. But his reign as an autocrat appears to be over.
I guess this is good and I did not expect it but it seems to me we’re still being double taxed for the trash service. And what’s next, do we have to start paying extra for police service, road service, safe water, etc.? Not time to forgive and forget and don’t forget that “rust never sleeps.
The people who are double taxed are the people who live in the City, but do not get their trash picked by the City. They pay in their rent or HOA fees, and then pay property taxes, directly or indirectly. that pays for the “free” trash pickup for (most) single family homes.