Prior to 2023, the City did not charge citizens a fee for trash and recycle services. Instead, citizens paid for those services through the General Fund via sales and property taxes. The City collected trash every week and recycle every two weeks (bi-weekly). The City charged an optional fee to customers who wanted compost service.
In 2023, the City introduced a new Volume-Based Pricing (VBP) program, imposing a mandatory monthly fee for trash, recycling, and compost based on the size of the trash cart ($9/month for the smallest cart to $21/month for the largest). The City Council made several promises, including:
- Weekly collection of trash, recycling, and compost.
- Subsidies from the General Fund to keep rates low.
- Environmental benefits such as increased waste diversion and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Although VBP has good intentions, it suffers from a lack of transparency, financial planning, and execution. Key issues and questions for elected officials include:
- Future rate increases: City Council has not provided estimates of future rate increases or the duration of subsidies from the General Fund. Also, they have provided no plan or explanation for funding the replacement of the City’s aging trash truck fleet, which is a major upcoming expenditure.
- Why are our elected officials putting ratepayers in an uncertain financial position and subjecting them to large potential rate increases? If the private sector can provide service for less, will they continue to enforce the City monopoly?
- Environmental impact: When voting for the program in 2022, Council downplayed the negative environmental impacts (fuel usage, emissions, etc.) of additional trash truck routes. Yet, when Council decided to cut service in 2025, they cited the environmental benefits of it. Furthermore, plastic recycling is mostly a fraud with 95% of it ending up in the landfill. Also, waste diversion rates barely moved since the program began (23% to 26%). Lastly, many households have chosen not to get a compost cart, and the ones that do have one, don’t put it out often.
- Why aren’t our elected officials providing clear, comprehensive information about the environmental benefits and drawbacks of VBP? What are confused citizens supposed to believe by this conflicting information?
- Backdoor tax and rate increases: Transitioning a service historically funded by tax dollars through the General Fund to a fee-based model without a corresponding tax decrease is a backdoor tax increase. Also, in 2025, City Council broke their promise of weekly service and cut recycle pickup to bi-weekly to reduce costs. Despite this reduction in service, there was no corresponding decrease in fees, which made this a backdoor rate increase
- Why do our elected officials support this lack of transparency in governance? Why do they support bait-and-switch tactics?