The San Diego City Council Wednesday hedged its bets in a private meeting, agreeing to partially reduce trash fees for single-family homes and roll back entirely paid parking in Balboa Park instead of potentially losing all the revenue in messy lawsuits.
The decision is a win for opponents of the controversial fees, but also represents a compromise by requiring a collection of homeowners suing the city over the trash fees to drop efforts to repeal the fees via ballot measure this fall.
However, it also leaves the city to find the lost revenue -- or slash existing services -- from somewhere else, as a tense budget process for Fiscal Year 2027 enters its final weeks.
The homeowners sued the city following the passage of Measure B, which ended more than 100 years of free trash pickup services for single-family homes. The plaintiffs alleged the fees violate Proposition 218, a state ballot measure that holds utility fees cannot exceed the costs of providing those services.
Former San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre, one of the attorneys representing the homeowners, said that while voters approved a monthly fee of between $23 and $29, the City Council approved imposing a nearly $44 monthly fee.
"This is draining money from people's homes and if they are not able to pay, they are terrified that they will be foreclosed on," Aguirre told Superior Court Judge Euketa Oliver earlier this month. According to the Union- Tribune, the trial over the trash fees was recessed on Wednesday and will likely be dismissed this week.
(Reporting partner 10 news contributed to this story)