At the June 16th Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) General Purpose Meeting, a crowd of 75 irate residents gathered to complain about a large and unexpected rate increase by Waste Management (WM) for garbage collection in rural Castro Valley.

The new rates will affect 260 residents of the “Canyonlands” areas in the rural canyon areas on the eastern side of Castro Valley, and reflect up to a 300% increase on the current rates that have been in place since 2011. The area is outside of the jurisdiction of the Castro Valley Sanitary District (CVSan), and therefore does not fall under CVSan’s contract with Waste Management. The residents are in a “free market” area, where they can contract with whomever they like for garbage collection. Currently WM is the only company servicing the area, giving them a virtual monopoly on services.

A representative from Waste Management was on hand to explain the company’s rationale behind the sudden increase. In the past few years, many residents had requested recycling services in addition to their trash pickups. While WM was researching the requests in order to determine potential costs, they discovered that the company had failed to update the rates since 2011. Furthermore, their internal auditors calculated that the rates in force were “underpriced” and had probably been incorrect in the first place. WM decided to revise the prices and implement a corrected and current pricing structure immediately. Unfortunately, this amounted to an instant increase in rates which for many residents approached a 300% jump. The WM representative told the MAC that they decided to just “pull the trigger” and “correct the price coding all at once.”

The residents still will not have recycling services.

Many residents were on hand at the meeting to question the move, and complain about the lack of notice. WM sent out a notice that the increase would be coming, but many did not receive it. Their only “notice” was when they opened their regular bill to discover the new rate. WM could not explain why the notices were not all be delivered but the bills did manage to get through, since they both used the same database for the addresses.

The MAC chair Marc Crawford voiced concern that this decision was made quickly and quietly. He questioned why the residents were being forced to pay all at once for a problem that only occurred due to internal errors at WM, and only came to light because the residents wanted to recycle. The MAC urged residents to contact WM and complain about the increase, and request a scaled implementation over a period of time. They even went so far as to post the email address to WM’s Regional VP on the whiteboard for all to see.

Crawford also said that Supervisor Miley specifically wanted this topic to be brought up at a MAC meeting for public scrutiny and comment. He acknowledged that the MAC and the Supervisor’s office really had no power to affect this decision, but they both felt it needed to be publicized and commented upon.

Both the MAC and County Staff agreed that the best solution for the Canyonlands would be for them to be annexed by CVSan, thus giving them elected representation and greater bargaining powers over WM. A proposal for this has been in review since 2009, but has been stalled on both sides for the past year. The main sticking point is funding. CVSan requires a formal survey of the annexed area, and they predict it will run between $40,000 and $50,000.

The meeting ended with the MAC:

Encouraging WM to consider a “scaling up” of the rate increase

Asking the County and CVSan to explore creative ways to finance the annexation, or possibly even waive the survey requirement

Telling concerned residents to make themselves heard to the management of WM

In the week since the MAC meeting, there have been unconfirmed reports that WM will scale in the price increases over a three year period due to public outcry. Hopefully we will learn more at future MAC meetings. It seems that this story has turned out to be a great example of Supervisor Miley and the MAC teaming up to help residents who had no say of their own.