Saratoga News
News
Hard to serve or not, should trash rates be the same?
By Jason Sweeney
For Los Gatos Councilman Steve Glickman, the question is a philosophical one: Would you pay slightly more for a service so that your neighbor wouldn't have to pay a lot more for the same?
Glickman hopes to pose this question to Los Gatos residents in an upcoming meeting of the Los Gatos Town Council. The feedback he receives will help him decide how to vote on the West Valley Solid Waste Management Authority board regarding "hard to serve" rates for local garbage service.
West Valley Collection and Recycling took over garbage service in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno and Campbell last March. Customers were warned of a modest increase in their bills, but some customers were shocked when they opened their first bill and found that it had jumped by as much as 50 percent.
Customers that were designated as hard to serve by West Valley Collection and Recycling were paying a lot more on their trash bills than their neighbors.
For example, a regular customer in Los Gatos pays $17.88 a month for a 35-gallon trash bin, but a hard-to-serve customer pays $25.50.
Glickman, Monte Sereno Councilman Curtis Wright, Saratoga Councilman Chuck Page and Campbell Councilman Don Burr sit on the West Valley Solid Waste Management Authority board representing the four communities served by West Valley Recycling Collection and Recycling. Of the four communities served by the garbage company, only Campbell has no customers in the hard-to-serve category. Los Gatos has the most, with more than 1,000 customers in that category.
For non-hard-to-serve customers in Los Gatos who use 35-gallon trash bins, an estimated price hike of 50 cents a month would equalize trash bills for everyone, while reducing the bills of their hard-to-serve neighbors by about $8 a month.
Although the monetary amounts aren't great, Glickman has so far heard only from hard to serve customers, who are in favor of lowering their bills by equalizing the rates.
"If someone is hard to serve, they are charged more, which has always been the case," Glickman said. "But pretty much the only people who were aware of this are the hard to serve customers. I'm not about to take action until I feel comfortable that people have the opportunity to be aware of what we propose to do. I want there to be an opportunity for well-informed public comment."
West Valley Collection and Recycling determined which customers were hard to serve by assessing which homes were difficult to access with its garbage trucks, which use automated arms to pick up trash bins. Narrow streets and low hanging trees were a factor in the company's assessment.
In hard to serve areas, a smaller truck is used, which is not as cost- efficient for the company.
Previously, Green Valley Disposal had designated hard to serve customers by drawing lines on the map in areas with narrow, windy roads.
When customers who were not previously hard to serve discovered that their designation had changed and their bills had risen, they flooded West Valley Collection and Recycling and their local municipalities with phone calls, questions and complaints.
A meeting of the West Valley Solid Waste Management Authority last June at the Monte Sereno City Council chambers drew an overflow crowd. At the meeting, the authority voted to reduce the hard to serve rate by $2 a month after discovering that West Valley Collection and Recycling had designated far more customers as hard to serve than Green Valley Disposal had.
Green Valley Disposal did not leave a list of which customers had been designated as hard to serve, which further complicated matters.
A more recent meeting of the authority on Aug. 21 at the Los Gatos Town Council chambers drew a more modest crowd. At the meeting, Glickman, Wright and Page said they would ask their respective councils if they were willing to eliminate the hard-to-serve designation by slightly raising rates for all customers.
"I'm in favor of getting rid of the hard-to-serve rate altogether," Wright said. "There's one rate for gas, one rate for phones, one rate for electricity. I think it should be the same for garbage collection in our city. In my view, it is unfair to have a few people see their rates go up 60 percent while everyone else is getting a great deal price-wise. By eliminating the hard-to-serve rate, our rates would go up 38 cents a month per person for everyone and still they would be less than anyone else around. I just think it's unfair for a few people to be penalized."
The next meeting of the West Valley Solid Waste Management Authority board is in the Monte Sereno City Council chambers on Nov. 1. Scott Hobson, executive directive of the authority, said, "If the board decides to eliminate the hard-to-serve rate, they would then give me direction to work with West Valley Collection and Recycling to calculate the new rates that would be necessary if the hard-to-serve rates were eliminated."
Another issue to be determined is when any new rates would go into effect. West Valley Collection and Recycling is already scheduled to recalibrate its rates on July 1, 2008, based on changes in the Consumer Price Index.
