Lodi Council OKs new rate structure to meet mandate

Aug. 18—After months of debate, protest and delay, solid waste rates that ensure the City of Lodi complies with a state mandate were approved Wednesday night.

The Lodi City Council voted 4-0 to approve the new rates, which will take effect Sept. 1. Councilman Ramon Yepez was absent from the meeting.

In 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 1383 into law, setting methane emission reduction targets for California. The bill's goal is to reduce organic waste disposal in landfills 75% from 2014 levels by 2025, or from about 23 million tons to 5.7 million tons.

The law required every jurisdiction in the state to provide organic waste collection services to businesses and residents, beginning Jan. 1, 2022.

Organic waste includes food, green material, landscape and pruning waste, organic textiles and carpets, lumber, wood, paper products, printing and writing paper, manure, biosolids, digestate and sludges, according to CalRecycle.

However, as the Jan. 1, 2022 deadline approached, cities and counties throughout California asked the state for more preparation time. Jurisdictions were given until Jan. 1, 2023 to comply, and the City of Lodi at the time asked for another extension, as residents protested the rates proposed by WM, Lodi's garbage servicer. That request was denied.

With Wednesday's approval, WM will eliminate 20-gallon trash carts. However, some 3,598 Lodi customers upgraded to 35-gallon carts will be allowed to pay 20-gallon cart rates. The rates for those customers will be $26.85 a month, a $5 increase over their current bill.

Theses "20-gallon legacy" customers will then see a $5 increase to their bills for three years until all residents with 35-gallon carts are paying the same rate, staff said.

The remaining 10,603 customers with 35-gallon trash bins will see their bills increase by $5 to $37.11, and customers with 64-gallon carts will also see a $5 increase, to $53.34.

There are 580 customers with 96-gallon carts, and their bills will actually decrease by $46 to $59.34 a month, staff said.

Public works director Charles Swimley said the "20-gallon legacy" customers will be the first to receive their new color-coded bins from WM, which should be delivered by next March.

Carts with green lids will be used for yard and organics waste, and carts with black lids will be used for trash. Carts with blue lids will be used for recycling.

In addition to new bins and rates, customers will also be given warnings about overfilling and cross-contamination.

If a resident has two or more overage or contamination incidents between September and December, they will receive a notice in January that they will be automatically upgraded to the next bin size in March of 2024.

WM will be able to monitor cross-contamination through video surveillance equipment installed on their trucks, and the company will also provide funding to the city for a full-time position to oversee operations, it said.

However, Swimley said if a customer has no contamination violation over the past 12 months, they can request to have a reduction in service to return the to the cart size they had before.

"If a lid is open by six to 10 inches, it's going to be obvious that you've got more contents in the cart than it was designed to accommodate," Swimley said. "That would result in a violation. Contamination — if you have a 13-gallon trash bag in your recycling cart, that would result in a violation."

Swimley added that customers who place loose materials on the sides of carts will also result in an overage violation.

Dozens of residents packed council chambers at Carnegie Forum Wednesday night, with some addressing the council to oppose the rate changes.

Mark Wilcox said the rates should be based on an individual's usage, similar to the way residents are charged for water.

"I understand the (WM) doesn't like dealing with the small 20-gallon carts," he said. "Maybe we have to stay with the current practice of honoring those that have qualified through the city finance department for a reduced rate for those with very little garbage."

Claire Lima said that she's like many other residents who have spoken at previous meetings: a single person who uses one small garbage bag each week.

Lima said now that she will be required to separate organic waste from the trash, her garbage is going to be smaller in the future.

"I do not need a 35-gallon can with an increase of $5, and then another $5 and another $5," she said. "At some point, you're all going to wind up on a fixed income, and it's going to be a problem for you too. You have a large senior population here, and I think you need to take their needs into consideration. I've seen overfilled cans, but to penalize others by increasing cans and their expense is wrong, too."

City manager Steve Schwabauer said the city has a "free rider" problem that can't be solved for the benefit of low-volume customers or high-volume customers.

"That free rider problem is a lot of people — most people — are abusing their carts," he said. "And the cost — the people we have to hire, the policing we have to do, the transportation we have to do, the gas we have to burn in order to get control of that — will ultimately drive your rates higher than what we are proposing today."

Councilman Alan Nakanishi told residents in attendance that the city had been working on new solid waste collection rates for months, and the concerns discussed had been fielded before.

"When this project was first brought forward by WM and staff, they were trying to be cost effective ... the cheapest way for everybody," he said. "That meant we had to do away with the 35-gallon cans. But then the citizens came to us and said they wanted the 35-gallon cans, even though it would cost more. If we don't do this, the city will be docked daily."