The outcry on the proposed trash rates of San Diego in San Diego is whether the city could legally outsource the waste service to private carriers so that residents can pay less.
The City Charter claims that the mayor has the discretion to consider externalizing any service, with the exception of the police, the fight against fires or the rescue. But the measurement of the city’s ballot which caused the new trash costs can come into conflict.
An analysis of 12 local cities that subcontract the trash service shows that they have lower monthly invoices, in some cases by a large margin.
San Diego officials offer a full rate at full service of $ 53, which would increase to $ 65 in July 2027 when more waste and recycling services are added.
The median monthly costs in the 12 local cities questioned by San Diego are $ 32, which includes monthly costs of $ 28 in El Cajon, $ 23 to $ 35 in Chula Vista, $ 28 to $ 31 in Carlsbad and $ 29 at $ 33 in Oceanside.
But San Diego officials argue that such comparisons can be misleading, stressing that waste collection is more complicated in San Diego because it is a sprawling city that extends from San Ysidro near the American-Mexican border to North to Rancho Bernardo.
“It is not reasonable to compare our costs to small compact cities,” said Nicole Darling, city spokesperson.
The debate comes with San Diego about to start invoicing people in single-family homes for waste and recycling services, after decades of non-offense for these services.
A voting measure of the city in 2022 that the voters narrowly approved allows the city to start invoicing. The officials say that this would allow the city to save around $ 70 million a year – the amount it has spent in the collection of waste.
Before the voters went to the ballot box in 2022, the independent budgetary analyst of the City estimates that the monthly invoices are between $ 23 and $ 29 if the measurement of the ballot was approved.
But after a long and complete analysis which recommended to considerably improve waste and recycling services, the city now offers rates that are almost double this, which has aroused public outcry.
Darling said that the context was necessary when comparing the city’s proposed prices to be billed in the small cities of the county.
“When you compare the rates between the courts, it is important to consider geographic factors such as the size of the city, the layout and the proximity to the facilities; community needs and preferences; Scopes of services; variability of operating costs; And if the costs received will completely recover the expenses, “said Darling.
She also noted that San Diego had experienced the outsourcing waste service in the early 1990s, with disappointing results.
During a two -year test when unifamilial customers were almost also divided between city forces and waste management teams, city teams have missed far fewer microphones and were more effective in delivering replacement trash cans.
Subsequently, an independent consultant concluded that “if the gaps presented by waste management were repaired through contractual requirements, the service cost would increase by at least 10%, thus eliminating any saving in private service costs.”
But before city leaders and residents could assess whether outsourcing would be an intelligent decision, officials must answer the question of whether San Diego even has the discretion to consider it.
Article 117 of the City Charter indicates that the mayor and the municipal council can outsource any municipal service, with the exception of public security, if “city services can be provided more economically and effectively by an independent entrepreneur than by those employed in classified service while maintaining the quality of services and the protection of the public interest.”
This language was added to the charter when city voters approved – 60.4% to 39.6% – Proposition C in November 2006.
But the voting measure of 2022 which allowed the City to start invoice waste services – Measure B – says that “City forces must collect and transport solid residential waste for transfer, transport, recycling or elimination.”
The use of the words “city forces” was not an accident, according to a supporter of the measure.
When the San Diego County Taxpayers Association complained in 2022, measure B would prevent outsourcing by locking the city crews as exclusive waste carriers for unifamilial houses, the member of the Joe Lacava Council defended this decision.
Lacava stressed that state law requires that the city does not charge more than it is to provide waste services, while private carriers have the power to charge more – all that the market will authorize.
“Competition is not always played out in the way people think,” Lacava said in 2022.
Lacava also said that it would be disruptive to replace the city’s crews with private carriers, noting that San Diego had recently bought dozens of garbage trucks and had hired many new drivers to comply with the new state recycling law.
“I am convinced that they offer the best service and the best price in the future, and that is why I think that competition is not the right answer for good governance,” said Lacava.
When asked if there was a conflict between the Charter and measure B, the city’s prosecutor Heather Ferbert told San Diego Union-Tribune last week that B measure banished the possibility of outsourcing city leaders.
“Section 117 (C) of the Charter gives the city the choice between engaging a managed competition or using the city forces,” she said by e-mail. “In the case of measure B, this choice was given to voters. The clear language of the voting measure specified that the city’s forces would continue to provide a collection of waste to eligible residences. Measure B is not in conflict with the City Charter. »»
Jan Goldsmith, who was a lawyer for the city of San Diego from 2008 to 2016, sees it differently.
Goldsmith said that a key factor is that measurement B has changed a city law known as the people’s order, but that it has not changed the city’s charter, which serves as the city’s constitution.
“Based on the well-established decisions of the Supreme Court of California, the city’s prosecutor’s office has long concluded that, as a fundamental city, San Diego cannot act in conflict with its charter and that any act, including the promulgation of an order, violating or not in accordance with the charter is empty,” said Goldsmith by e-mail or not.
Ferbert’s comments last week were not part of an official legal opinion or a memorandum of understanding. In such a document, it could solve the problem in more detail.
Residents frustrated by the costs offered by the City could put pressure on city leaders to consider outsourcing during a March 25 hearing when the municipal council should vote on new costs.
“A deactivation option must be offered, with an obligation to contract with one of the approved private carriers’ cabinets,” resident Jeff Hamblin said in a recent email to the city.
Darling said that participation in a new wave of public forums on trash costs has roughly doubled the attendance of forums organized before the revelation of the costs offered.
During public hearings and in emails, residents express indignation.
“This represents more than double the estimate when voters were invited to consider the measurement and exceeds the rate of return of the surrounding cities which use private waste collection services,” said resident Richard Phillips in a recent email.
Residents also call on the city to reduce plans for new expensive services, in particular a plan to spend 16 million dollars to replace all existing blue and black trash cans, whatever their new.
“Why would you replace all the existing black and blue bins?” Asked the resident Jennifer Martin-Roff in an email. “It is not necessary, because some bins are always in perfect condition. It would be a waste of money as well as harmful to eliminate all these plastic bins. Do not waste $ 16 million on this!
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