San Diego Homeowners Hit With Bogus Trash Charges on Property Tax Bills
Tens of thousands of residents may have been overcharged due to data errors, sparking calls for the mayor's resignation.
Up to 90,000 San Diego homeowners may have been wrongly charged for trash services on their property tax bills, with some facing overcharges exceeding $1,000. The error has drawn criticism from city council members, who are questioning Mayor Todd Gloria's leadership.
Councilmember Henry Foster, who opposed the new solid waste fee, directly addressed the mayor's accountability. "This speaks to the competency of the mayor... There needs to be change at the City of San Diego. That change needs to start at the top. The Mayor needs to look himself in the mirror, and if it’s time for him to step down, then he needs to step down," Foster stated.
The issue stems from data discrepancies between the city's Environmental Services trash portal and the information submitted to San Diego County. While the city's records were reportedly accurate, the data sent to the county for property tax bill generation did not match, leading to the incorrect charges.
Mayor Gloria acknowledged the city's quality control failures. "It’s a matter of the data that was there being changed in the process of being submitted to the county, and this is something that our quality assurance should have caught. It did not catch it, and that’s why we have to correct it quickly," Gloria said. He assured that corrected information would be sent to the county and that affected homeowners would be compensated.
The city has not yet determined the cost of rectifying the errors. Foster criticized the handling of the situation, referring to it as an "unacceptable" error. His concerns extend beyond the billing issues. Following the dismissal of former Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan, Mayor Gloria assumed direct control of the city's daily operations. Foster has threatened to pursue a ballot measure to reduce the mayor's power and dismantle the city's strong-mayor system if a qualified administrator is not appointed.
All nine members of the San Diego City Council are registered Democrats.