Tag Archives: trash collection fee

El Segundo residential trash collection fee is not a dead issue

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Mike

The El Segundo residential trash collection fee is back on the City Council agenda for the February 1, 2011 meeting. At issue is whether the City will stop collecting trash from residential properties with three or four units on a lot. It has been a long-standing City practice and tradition, going back at least to the early 1990’s, for the City to collect trash without fee from single family homes, and residential properties with two to four units on a lot, as long as standard trash cans are used instead of the large rectangular trash bins. Existing taxes pay for this service.

However, there is an inconsistency between the existing practice and the El Segundo Municipal Code, which provides only for City trash collection for single family homes and residential properties with two units on a lot. The logical solution is simply to amend the city’s municipal code to be consistent with the long-standing actual practice.

Please contact the El Segundo City Council members and urge them to amend the city’s municipal code to continue the long-standing City practice of collecting trash from all residential properties with one to four units on a lot that use standard trash cans. Remind them that the residents can use a voter initiative to amend the El Segundo Municipal Code for them if they won’t do it. … Continue reading →

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A Victory for El Segundo Residents and Residential Property Owners (House or Two Units)

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Mike

by Michael D. Robbins
Director, Public Safety Project, PublicSafetyProject.org

January 19, 2011

Congratulations! We won again! Thank you for sending in your Proposition 218 Trash Fee Protest Ballots before the deadline. A total of 1,850 unverified protest ballots were sent to City Hall, and only a total of 1,439 verified protest ballots were needed to defeat the new residential trash collection fee. The City Council voted 3-2 at its January 18, 2011 meeting, to accept the unverified protest ballots as sufficient without having the City Clerk’s staff spend the time to open all the envelopes, verify that the ballots were properly completed and signed, and count the valid ones that are not duplicates from owners and tenants of the same property.

City Council member Don Brann made the motion to accept the unverified protest ballots as sufficient. Mayor Eric Busch tried to ignore the motion and said that the City Clerk would come back to the City Council with the results after the protest ballots were verified and counted. Council member Don Brann caught this apparent maneuver to avoid a vote and move on to the next agenda item, and he stated that he made a motion. Council member Carl Jacobson seconded the motion for discussion. After brief discussion, Council member Don Brann asked for a vote. Mayor Eric Busch and Mayor Pro Tem Bill Fisher voted “NO”, and Council members Don Brann, Carl Jacobson, and Suzanne Fuentes voted “Yes” on the motion.
This vote by mail election used a strange system where properties for which no Protest Ballot is completed, signed, and returned before the deadline COUNT AS YES VOTES, and Protest Ballots from both the owner and tenant(s) of the same property COUNT AS ONLY ONE NO VOTE.

The first year of the trash fee would have cost residents an estimated $560,700, which is less than the estimated $596,657 total compensation paid to former El Segundo Police Chief David Cummings in 2009 from all sources – including his city contract and pension income while working for the city after his retirement. This is an enormous amount of compensation for any city, but especially for the City of El Segundo, California, which has about 5.5 square miles and about 16,000 or 17,000 population. … Continue reading →

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