SAN DIEGO (CNS) - San Diego City Councilman Raul Campillo said Wednesday he was "shocked" after the City Council's Rules Committee rejected his proposal aimed at increasing transparency around property-related fees.
The proposal would have required the city to:
- Express in writing that a fee was being proposed
- Allow a clear channel for property-owners to submit a protest against said fee
- Back down should a majority of the affected property-owners protest the fee
"I voted no on the trash fee last year, and I even called it what it was: a bait-and-switch," Campillo said. "My intent was to pass a policy that would make sure a bait-and-switch never happens to San Diegans again, but my four colleagues on the Rules Committee just buried that idea.
"I am frankly shocked that my colleagues didn't support my proposal to require the City Council to transparently inform the public of exactly what the fees are prior to voting on them. San Diegans, who live in one of the most expensive places in the country, deserve leaders that go above and beyond on transparency and accountability. This is common sense. This Council should not hide fees from the public. And today, they ran and hid."
The San Diego City Council last June approved a solid-waste fee, ending a 106-year precedent of the city not charging single-family homeowners for trash pickup.
Starting July 1, homeowners began to be charged $42.76 a month for three 95-gallon cans -- one for trash, one for recycling and one for organics such as yard waste or food scraps -- regardless of how much waste they produce.
"This is not a new cost, this is a cost that has been borne by those who do not receive city services," Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera said at June's council meeting.
Then-Council President Elo-Rivera and Councilman Joe LaCava proposed Measure B in 2022, allowing the city to collect fees for solid waste collection, transport, disposal and recycling, including bin costs, and requiring certain short-term rentals, accessory dwelling units and "mini- dorms" receiving city trash pickup to pay for services.
Both Elo-Rivera and now-Council President Joe LaCava are on the Rules Committee, along with Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee and Councilwoman Vivian Moreno. All four voted down Campillo's proposal Wednesday.
When Measure B passed by a narrow margin, it was with the estimate of a trash fee ranging from $23-$29 to amend the "People's Ordinance," passed in 1919. However, this was with the assumption that the city served 285,000 households.
The Environmental Services Department, when faced with the prospect of a new fee, counted the number of households the city served following the election and came up with 226,495 -- a nearly 60,000-household difference.
As a result, when a cost study came back in April 2025, the fee jumped to $36.72 per month on the low end and $47.59 on the high. That received almost universally negative feedback from the public, so a revised fee schedule then went to a range of $31.98-$42.76 in the first year by delaying certain services such as bulky item pickup and an electric vehicle pilot program.
Opponents, such as Campillo, said the move was a bait-and-switch which would not have passed if the true numbers were clear from the beginning.
The city is already required by state and federal law to establish the cost of the city-provided service and ensure the amount of the fee "does not exceed the proportional cost of the service attributable to the parcel." The associated public hearing process also requires the city to provide the impacted parcels with a mailed notice and to inform them about the proposed fee.
Campillo's failed proposal would have gone further, making it exceedingly difficult for a property-based tax to be passed in the city. A total of 48% of households in San Diego rent, meaning they would have had no say beyond the ballot box due to the property-owning requirement to protest the fees in the proposal.
"It is in the city's best interest that property owners that are asked to pay a new or increased fee, understand basic information about what is being proposed, and about what their rights are in the process," the proposal read. "A well-informed and engaged public is beneficial for the City Council's decision-making process, as Councilmembers will be able to take into consideration what is important to their constituency, and legislate in alignment with this to the greatest extent possible."
The "People's Ordinance" had been criticized for years by activists for being inequitable because although every household pays property tax either directly or through rent, only single-family households received trash pickup at no additional charge. In 2009, a San Diego County grand jury concluded that the ordinance had "outlived its usefulness in a 21st Century society."
Of the 226,495 homeowners the fee would impact, the city received around 46,000 protests. More than 113,000 would have needed to file a protest to defeat the item before it reached the council.
According to city documents released with the ballot measure in 2022, the price of keeping the service as it existed without adding a fee was expected to cost at least $234.7 million between fiscal year 2023 and 2027.
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