Garbage collection Costs
Jennifer Dotta works at Luka’s Taproom & Lounge, which has stopped composting because of the fee hike.
Jennifer Dotta works at Luka’s Taproom & Lounge, which has...
When Oakland City Council members approved a contract with a garbage hauler last year to reduce landfill waste by ambitiously composting and recycling, they celebrated it as a major environmental achievement. Now, it’s clear they didn’t read the fine print.
The first bills reflecting the contract arrived this month in homes and businesses across the city, and no one, it seems, was prepared for the new fees.
Stuart Proffitt’s monthly bill for a 10-unit apartment building in the Temescal neighborhood jumped from $300 to $1, 300.
Photo: Michael Short / Michael Short / Special To The Chronicle
A can full of waste that would normally be composted is instead headed for the regular trash at Luka’s Taproom.
A can full of waste that would normally be composted is instead...
Gail Lillian’s bill, for her Liba Falafel restaurant in the city’s uptown district, shot up from 5 to 5.
Carmen Madden’s went from 7 to , 360 for her 30-unit apartment building in East Oakland.
People are furious, and their anger is spilling into City Hall.
“A 300 percent increase is improper. Who was representing anyone’s interest?” Proffitt demanded in a letter to council members, in which he described the rate hikes as “obvious mistakes.”
But they weren’t mistakes. The rate increases were in the contract — the council simply didn’t spot them.
The council awarded the 10-year garbage contract last year after a long and acrimonious battle over which company should be given the $1 billion job to pick up trash, compost and recycling in Oakland. In the end, the City Council picked Waste Management — which has hauled Oakland’s trash for decades — to handle the garbage and compost, while California Waste Solutions was entrusted with picking up residential recyclables.
Waste Management officials say there were no secrets about what was in the contract — and that it was all laid out for city officials before they signed on.
Gail Lillian says the garbage bill at her Liba Falafel restaurant in Oakland’s uptown district shot up from $345 to $625.
Gail Lillian says the garbage bill at her Liba Falafel restaurant...
Council members surprised
But at a special hearing at City Hall on Monday prompted by complaints about the bills from around the city, council members insisted they had no idea this was what they’d agreed to.
“If some alien came from another planet, they’d think, ‘What the heck’s going on here?’” said Councilman Dan Kalb. “And that’s what I’m thinking: What the heck’s going on here?”
When Kalb and his colleagues voted to approve the garbage contract in September, they were reassured by city staffers that they were signing on to a great deal.
“We have a high degree of confidence that services can and will be delivered on July 1, 2015, at the lowest possible cost, ” then-interim City Administrator Henry Gardner told the council at the September meeting.
Photo: Michael Short / Michael Short / Special To The ChronicleChef Wilson Mendez (left) watches as dishwasher Max Rodas (right) and another worker take out the garbage at Luka’s Taproom, where the owner says the monthly trash bill soared from $1, 350 to $2, 250.
