Judge won’t block San Diego from charging new trash pickup fees

Hundreds of thousands of San Diego homeowners will see a new trash fee added to their property tax bill this fall, after a judge on Friday refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the county from doing so.

The decision in a lawsuit challenging the trash fee paves the way for the city of San Diego to start collecting millions of dollars a year to pay for picking up trash from some 225,000 single-family homes.

Following a hearing that lasted just over 30 minutes, Judge James A. Mangione upheld his tentative ruling denying the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction.

The two-page decision says a preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy that should only be used in extraordinary circumstances.

“Many of the arguments that you just made would be great at trial — if we get to that,” the judge told the plaintiffs’ lawyer in court, former San Diego city attorney Michael Aguirre. “Remember why we are here: a motion for preliminary injunction.”

Aguirre represents about 15 homeowners in arguing the trash fee will raise much more money than the city spent on trash collection last year and thus violates the state constitution. They argue the city is imposing higher assessments to try to generate new revenue after voters rejected a sales-tax increase officials were counting on to balance the budget.

“Last year the city (spent) a total of $70 million; this year they are charging $148 million — more than twice,” Aguirre told the judge. “That is not reasonable.”

Gabriel McWhirter, one of the Bay Area attorneys hired by the city to defend the lawsuit, told the judge that existing case law has established that public agencies may collect trash fees through annual property tax assessments.

He said the new fees will level the playing field between residents of different kinds of homes. Those who own or live in apartments and condos have long had to pay for monthly trash service, while single-family homeowners — until now — have not had to pay.

“One of the critical things this new fee is doing is avoiding that inequitable setup, where certain residents were having that subsidized service,” McWhirter said.

The city put its plans to start charging for trash pickup in motion in 2022, when a bare majority of voters agreed to overturn the century-old law known as the People’s Ordinance. That rule had guaranteed free trash service to single-family homes even though renters and others had to pay for the collections.

But the rollout of the new trash pickup system by San Diego officials has been somewhat troubled.

Voters were told in 2022 that the monthly fee would likely be between $23 and $29, but after the city hired a firm for $4.5 million to study proposed fees, it ultimately settled on $43.60 per month, with discounts for using smaller bins.

But the plaintiffs argue the city deliberately made it difficult to sign up for the smaller bins and cheaper monthly rate. They also say prices rose due to the city’s plan to replace all bins, even those with some useful life left.

Fewer than half of the 225,000 affected homeowners had create an online account requested by the city to register a preferred bin size by a Sept. 30 deadline. Those who did not respond or were unable to register will have future chances to secure smaller trash cans.

The move to convert single-family homeowners into paying customers also has created a pool of some 20,000 people whose homes are not eligible for city-run trash service.

Thousands of those residents have struggled to find replacement providers at a reasonable cost and have yet to find a private-sector trash hauler to take over. San Diego officials have said they will not allow trash to pile up on city streets.

In the wake of the judge’s decision not to impose a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs’ lawyers asked for a trial date within the next three months.

Both the judge and the defendants’ attorneys said that timeline was not feasible.

“I encourage counsel to meet and confer,” Mangione said. “You’re not going to get a trial date at the end of 2026, but you’re not going to get a trial date in 90 days either.”

A case management conference in the dispute was scheduled for Oct. 24.