El Segundo residential trash collection fee is not a dead issue

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

January 24, 2011

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. Also attend the February 1, 2011 City Council meeting at 7:00 PM if you can, at 350 Main Street, on the southeast corner at Holly Ave., across from Stuft Pizza. Enter the City Council chamber lobby through the glass doors on the southwest side of the building, on the north side of the patio.

The City Council member phone numbers and emails can be found on the official El Segundo City web site Elected Officials page at http://www.elsegundo.org/depts/elected/default.asp.

The City Council email addresses (as of January 2, 2011) can also be found on the El Segundo City Employee Salaries web page at http://PublicSafetyProject.org/blog/2011/01/02/call-to-action-citizens-of-el-segundo-need-your-help/.

If the City Council does not amend the municipal code to continue the current practice, there may be many different large trash collection trucks from different companies driving through the residential areas of our city to service the affected properties. Also, many of the residential properties with three or four units on a lot have older structures with no space to accommodate a large rectangular trash bin required for collection by a private company. If the property owners take away a garage or one or two parking spaces from tenants to make space for a large rectangular trash bin, they will probably be in violation of the zoning code, which specifies the number of garages and parking spaces required based on the zone and the number of residential units. Furthermore, some of these properties are on hills which would make it impractical and unsafe to use large rectangular trash bins.

However, it appears that the City Council majority may still be trying to cut services, which effectively increases taxes and fees, to continue enriching city employees – especially firefighter and police union members and their managers – with wildly excessive and unsustainable salaries, benefits, and pensions.

To charge trash collection fees only to residential properties with three or four units on a lot would require another Proposition 218 vote with protest ballots, which we just completed for one and two residential units on a lot, and the City Council majority lost. The other way to effectively increase taxes and fees is to eliminate or reduce city services. Proposition 218 probably does not require a protest vote by property owners and tenants before the elimination or reduction of city services to properties and property owners (this needs to be verified).