November 2022 City of San Diego Measure B: Trash Meets Cash

Ain’t No Such Thing as Free

The four ballot measures for City of San Diego voters to consider in the upcoming general election all have the potential to change the way things are done in our city. 

All of these items under consideration are supported by forces older activists would consider the ‘establishment,’ which these days consists of elected Democrats and various factions of the city’s landed gentry. Some of these items are supported or opposed by hard core reactionaries. Others fit into the agenda many would call progressive.

My point here is that reflexively reacting to the ballot questions based on perceptions of the supporters or opposition is lazy politics. At issue with a couple of these questions are arguments about perfect being the enemy of good.

Measure B: Is it time for free trash pick ups for single and smaller multi-family residences to come to an end?

There’s some history here worth sharing. As the city grew in the late 1800s, so did its trash problem.  Dead animals and “night soil” — a tactful reference to outhouse sewage– were supposed to be picked up by a man paid by the city and taken away to be used as fertilizer by local farmers. He was busted after the odors wafting through downtown made it clear he was collecting the cash and not picking up the trash. 

A company was hired to take over the task, and they promised to take the waste to pig farmers in Los Angeles. The problem was that this company was getting paid once to pick up and again by farmers looking for slop. 

A bunch of civic minded types thought this double dipping was outrageous, and asked voters to consider requiring the city to take over trash pick up. Voters agreed, and The People’s Ordinance was approved by an 85% to 15% margin.

The law allowed the government to set a price for collecting waste, but somehow they never got around to it. And “free trash” became a thing in San Diego.

The debate over charging for this service comes up every so often, but no City Council has ever had the nerve to fully wade into the matter.

From a 2011 article in the Voice of San Diego:

• The People’s Ordinance is still in place today and has even more power. In 1981, voters declared that residential trash collection would remain free, although there could be fees for industrial and commercial waste. In 1986, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune, voters declared that free service would end for newly built multi-family homes (condos and apartments) but be allowed for small businesses. Voters also updated the ordinance to remove language requiring the separation of garbage, defined as “table refuse, night soil, swill and the entrails of butchered animals.”

• The grand jury, which recommended that voters revise the ordinance to allow fees, says this means about 304,000 households in the city don’t pay fees for trash pickup. The cost of all this, the grand jury said, is $53 million a year.

The cost of garbage has skyrocketed in recent years with the advent of recycling packaging and a growing realization of the toxicity of landfills. San Diego’s free ride for residential single & small multi-family homes is unique in California, and the city council has decided that maybe–just maybe–this question needs to be addressed.

From the Times of San Diego:

• The ordinance has been criticized for years by activists for being inequitable and not incentivizing residents to reduce, reuse and recycle. In 2009, a San Diego County grand jury concluded that the ordinance had “outlived its usefulness in a 21st Century society.”

• It will cost the city an estimated $43.2 million in fiscal year 2022 and is expected to cost at least $234.7 million between fiscal year 2023 and 2027 if not changed, according to city documents.

An article posted by NBC San Diego had a different set of numbers relating to the costs involved.

• Trash removal services have cost the city $260 million in the past five years and are expected to balloon to $380 million in the next five because of a new state law requiring the disposal of organic waste, according to a city study. The study also found that comparable California cities were charging homeowners anywhere from $25 to $100 per month for trash removal depending on the level of service.

Voter approval of this ordinance won’t establish a ‘pay as you throw’ system.

It merely allows the city to consider the idea of allowing a fee for solid waste collection, transport, disposal and recycling to include the cost of bins. Short-term vacation rentals, accessory dwelling units and “mini-dorms” currently receiving city trash pickup would also be asked to pay for these services. 

No fee could be implemented for at least two years after the ballot measure is approved because state law requires the city to comprehensively study how much it spends providing the service before it can start charging a fee.  

The Union-Tribune  looked into how much such a fee could be:

• A survey of other California cities by the city’s independent budget analyst shows monthly bills could range from $19 to $142. But the range is more narrow — $19 to $46 — when the survey only includes cities that use their own workers to pick up trash, excluding cities that use private haulers.

Ultimately, fees would be influenced by a variety of factors beyond simply dividing what the city currently pays for trash collection divided by the number of addresses getting service.

In addition to the upcoming organic waste collections, the city is also expected to begin providing periodic pickups of bulky trash items. A multi-million dollar reserve fund will need to be established, a city trash billing department will need to be created, and it’s likely there will be  bond payments to cover any new equipment and facilities needed for the service.

Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, who (bravely!) has been willing to spend political capital to get the measure on the ballot, says monthly fees would be phased in over time and subsidies for low-income families will be part of the program.

Opposing this measure will be Carl DeMaio, who is likely upset over the fact that the measure explicitly doesn’t allow for privatization of trash pick up, and will use the words “tax hike” to build his fundraising/mailing lists. 

He’s also saying that apartment buildings should receive free trash pickups, since the People’s Ordinance has been amended to earmark a portion of property tax revenue for the budget line item of trash pickup.

(A “free pickup” for apartments will never happen in the real world, and the cost of processing waste is another one of those expenses that will overwhelm local governments.)

It’s important to recognize when you hear these types of claims by people who purport to be anti-tax that their real goal is to drown government in a bathtub. City taxpayers are already on the hook for $150 million in the near future, as the DeMaio, et.al., pension “reforms” from a decade ago are unwound.

Yes, you should vote for Measure B, if for no other reason than we can no longer afford not to think about the waste we generate.  

Measure B - Ballot Title, Summary, and Impartial Analysis

Tomorrow - Measure C: Repeal 30 Foot Height Restriction for Midway

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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com