Re “San Diego prepares to charge households for trash pickup” (Nov. 20): If you believed the “independent” budget analyst’s $23 to $29 trash pick-up fee estimate and voted for Measure B two years ago, the expected bait and switch is here — Council President Sean Elo-Rivera now suggests $75 a month for “world class” trash service, code-speak for exorbitant fees to be heaped on the backs of homeowners already struggling with sky-high mortgage payments and property taxes. Adding insult to injury, the city wants to attach trash fees to your property tax bill, a tacit city ission that homeowners have been paying for trash pick-up through their property taxes all along (it was never “free”).
Fortunately, San Diegans wised up by voting down the city’s latest money grab, Measure E, to raise sales tax by 1% to fund overly generous city employee pay increases and hugely underfunded pension obligations.
— Ken Keagy, Bay Park
