OPINION/ANALYSIS BY LIONEL EMDE, RIPTIDE CORRESPONDENT
Pacifica ratepayers will be abandoned once more by the proposed new garbage collection contract up for final approval by Pacifica City Council. Pacificans already pay the highest rates for garbage collection in San Mateo County, yet instead of using the business failure of former Pacifica trash hauler Coastside Scavenger as an opportunity for better service and lower rates, council is opting for different service and the same rates—soon to go higher.
The contract is slated to be awarded to Recology (formerly Norcal Waste), which is paying the bad debts of Louis Picardo, owner of Coastside Scavenger, to the City of Pacifica, in exchange for a fat eight-year contract that opens at current rates but allows for even higher rates as soon as August 2010. After initial discussion February 8, council may schedule further debate. Check the city Web site for updates:
CITY OF PACIFICA The already-highest rates in San Mateo County will increase by another 5 percent in August 2010, according to the secretly worked-out agreement. More rate increases are already included in the hitherto secret agreement, in which rates will increase another 4 percent to 8 percent by March 2011. Where were the public’s advocates at this negotiating table? Evidently nowhere, in this time of pay cuts, job losses, and people losing their homes outright.
Coastside Scavenger sought to conceal its financial state, as evidenced by its refusal to open its books and those of its sister company Seacoast Disposal to auditors. The City of Pacifica never fought the issue fully in court to compel the full audit necessary to ascertain the state of these quasi-public agencies’ books and to determine where all the ratepayers’ money was going.
Here’s a question that’s never been answered: Why are Pacificans charged so much more than the same company’s customers south of Devil’s Slide?
CLICK HERE FOR SOME IDEASHere’s another set of questions about where the money’s been going all these years that we have been gouged:
CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW THE MONEY If these articles don’t raise questions in your mind, then consider the timing of the Friday-to-Monday slam-dunk by which this rich contract was to be awarded to Recology: The emailed council agenda packet was sent and arrived at 1:18 Friday afternoon, February 5. Coincidentally, city hall closed at 1:30 on Friday afternoon. The council meeting was on the following Monday, so there really was no time to react, and certainly the unwashed public wouldn’t know what hit ’em. This is the same process by which the last rate increase was maneuvered in 2008: public notice at the last minute and then a 9 percent rate increase.
And the real reason for the council’s evident eagerness for high rates can be seen in the new contract, which, like the old contract, calls for 11 percent of gross receipts going to the city, plus a "contingency fee" of $100,000 per year, plus a "Frontierland Park Remediation Fee" of $75,000 per year. (Frontierland Park is a former trash dump site.) There is also an option for a "Vehicle Impact Fee" being established in the future. What that might be is not detailed. So it’s very much in the city’s interest not only to keep rates at an all-time high but to increase them as soon as possible. It amounts to a backdoor tax.
The council should feel shame for such an underhanded fraud being foisted on ratepayers. The correct way to protect ratepayers is a request for proposal (RFP) process. At least two (2) other waste haulers are interested in this contract. The winning bidder usually pays costs associated with the RFP process, so there is no risk for ratepayers. Local business complains regularly about exorbitant rates charged for Dumpsters and debris boxes. Are we interested in helping people or in gouging them? Only time will tell if the people have any advocates on this City Council.
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