Ventura Council OKs Adjustments in Trash Rates

The Ventura City Council has approved raising trash rates by 22% for about 148 high-volume residential customers, but it will give a break to an expected 4,000 customers willing to use smaller trash cans.

The council left rates virtually the same for more than 18,000 others.

Until now, city trash rates gave a slight discount to high-volume customers, but the council voted 5 to 1 Monday to adjust the rate structure so most customers will pay the same rate of 21.7 cents per gallon per month for the cans provided by E. J. Harrison & Sons Inc., the city’s trash collector.

The old rate structure “encouraged you to have more trash barrels, and that’s what we wanted to stop,” Ventura Director of Finance Terry Adelman said Tuesday. “This was not intended to be a rate increase. If anything, it’s a rate reduction for many people. All this was to make the rate structure more uniform.”

The council increased the rate for the 148 customers citywide whose households generate 165 gallons of trash per week from $31.79 to $38.77 per month, Adelman said. The rates include a charge of about $2.90 a month for recycling.

But most customers don’t generate that much trash, and their rates will remain close to the current level when the new rate structure takes effect July 1, Adelman said.

About 19,700 customers who were paying $16.35 a month for Harrison’s 64-gallon cans will pay $16.82 per month as of July 1, Adelman said--a 3% increase.

But the 2,052 customers who used to pay $25.14 per month for their 101-gallon cans actually will pay less under the new rate structure--$24.86 per month, or a decrease of 1%.

Harrison also will begin offering smaller, 34-gallon trash cans for customers who do not need the full 64-gallon can, Adelman said. The city estimates that about 4,000 residential trash customers will switch from paying $16.35 for the 64-gallon service to the new 34-gallon service for a reduced rate of $14.04 a month.

Adelman said the elderly or young single people, who do not generate as much trash as families, are likely to switch from 64-gallon service to 34-gallon service. Customers who want the smaller cans may request them from Harrison.

A $5-per-bag surcharge will remain in effect for removal of garbage in excess of customers’ can capacity, Adelman said.

The rate hike has angered some homeowners who must use the 165-gallon service.

“It’s horrid. It’s outrageous,” said Theresa Ryan, who lives on Via Cielito with her husband and four young children, aged 4 months to 4 years. “It’s almost like this town is anti-people-with-big-families.”

With four young children, two in diapers, the family fills three cans with a total of 165 gallons of trash every week--and a smaller can with recyclable glass, plastic and paper, Ryan said.

With an extra recycling can, the family could reduce its trash service to 101 gallons and avoid the rate hike, Ryan said.

But she said Harrison & Sons has refused to step outside its own policies to give her a second can for recyclable material, which forces the family to throw out enough recyclables to fill the third trash can.

“I’m not willing to pay $40 a month, that’s just going to kill us,” she said.

To avoid the need for the third trash can, Ryan said, she probably will take glass, cans and plastics to recycling machines outside local supermarkets and seek somewhere else to dispose of her newspapers.

Adelman said newspapers, which take up the most space in the recycling cans, can be left on the curb if they are tied up or put into a brown paper bag or cardboard box.

“Harrison may be concerned that once he starts giving people two recycling containers, everyone will ask for it,” he said.

Harrison officials could not be reached for comment. The rate changes affect only residential customers. Commercial rates do not require council approval.