No new cans any time soon

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- A Costa Mesa Sanitary District board decision about a

proposed program to standardize trash cans throughout the city still

appears to be months away.

Board member Dan Worthington said earlier this week he expected the

board to make a preliminary decision at Thursday’s special meeting about

whether to commit money to the plan.

“We’re just studying this thing to death,” Worthington said after the

meeting. “We’re right there, but we just need to decide that the city’s

needs are important enough to go forward with this and not struggle any

longer. It’s time to call for the question.”

But board President Arlene Schafer said the board could not legally

make any decisions at the meeting because it was designated as a study

session.

The earliest meeting at which such a decision could be made is April

12, because a public hearing and a financial presentation are scheduled

for the board’s next meeting on March 8.

The issue will require at least one more study session after the March

meeting, Schafer said.

The program, if it is eventually passed, will give residents their

choice of standard 35-gallon, 60-gallon or 90-gallon cans free of charge.

Residents also will have the option of getting additional cans.

The sanitary district has been working on the program for more than

two years.

District board members say the change -- which would allow Costa Mesa

Disposable to pick up the cans using a semiautomatic trash truck arm,

keeping its now-skyrocketing insurance rates down and, in turn, holding

the city’s rates flat -- will beautify the city, protect workers and help

to keep rates stable.

Some residents have opposed the plan, saying Costa Mesa Disposal will

get the benefits and they will be inconvenienced because they will have

to store the city’s containers and the hauler will eventually stop

picking up trash that doesn’t fit in the containers.

Worthington said there will be an educational period of at least a

year when the hauler the board decides on will continue to pick up trash

left out of the containers.

Schafer said the board does not know if the hauler will pick up extra

trash after that time, because it is considering three different types of

standardized trash can programs.

Each will require a different hauler program, she said.

Gary Kempinsky, a Mesa Verde resident, is among those concerned about

the program.

Kempinsky said he’s bothered that people have not been better

notified.

“The thing that bothers me most of all is we weren’t informed,” he

said. “People should have been notified because this is a big thing. I

don’t want to stop progress, but I do want more thought to go into it.

The [board] has been having meetings at noon, which means many of us

can’t go, and I think the program could be tough on some of us. I am in a

wheelchair, and my wife has a bad back. She couldn’t handle the 90-gallon

barrels, but if we take 30s, we won’t be able to fit everything in them

and they might not pick them up.”

Mesa North resident Ernie Feeney said she is frustrated with the board

and thinks the program is a “done deal.”

“I still have concerns that haven’t been addressed,” she said. “They

act like everything is up in the air, but I don’t understand why they’re

playing this game when I think they’ve already made up their minds to do

this. I don’t think they would have wasted two years on this if they

hadn’t already made up their minds to do it. When they speak about it,

they don’t say, ‘If we decide to do this.’ They are getting down to what

containers, what pricing, how to do the phasing. . . . If it’s not a done

deal, why would they do that?”

Schafer said the board did make a preliminary decision to try to

develop a citywide standardized trash can program of some sort more than

a year ago, after the district concluded a successful pilot program in

two of the city’s neighborhoods.

“We made the decision to do the pilot program on a trial basis because

we needed to just see if it works,” she said. “Then we voted 5 to 0 to go

forward with the idea of going citywide, but we have made no decision

since then. All we’ve been doing is studying the idea. What we came up

with is three different companies with three different programs, which

are still being worked out, and we can choose one or the other, or

nothing at all.”