3 Oakland property owners sue over garbage costs

Three property owners who say their garbage bills increased astronomically when Oakland’s new contract with its trash and recycling haulers went into effect last July have gone to court seeking relief.

Some of what they pay Waste Management, the plaintiffs argue, is returned to the city by the garbage giant in the form of $25 million annually for the privilege of keeping the contract.

“We’re seeking to right the many wrongs and injustices created by the city’s failure to properly negotiate,” Wayne Rowland, president of the East Bay Rental Housing Association, said at a news conference at the Oakland Marriott hotel.

In addition to promoting composting and recycling, the contracts require that all of Oakland’s garbage be collected by union workers and dumped into new natural gas-powered trucks, all of which drives up costs.

“This is a really egregious, incompetent move the city has made,” said Zolly, one of the three plaintiffs, who said he was flabbergasted by the rate increases for the 31-unit apartment building he owns in Oakland’s Adams Point neighborhood.

Since the new contracts began, his trash and recycling bills have more than doubled — from $736 per month to $1,562.

Zolly has long taken pride in giving his tenants little amenities — like a courtyard with palm trees and tropical plants that he advertises as “a little Hawaii in Oakland” — but he said that with the ballooning cost of waste collection, he can no longer afford to upgrade the building.

Clayton, one of the other plaintiffs, said at the news conference that annual garbage costs have nearly doubled for the six-unit apartment building he owns on 38th Avenue in Oakland’s Allendale neighborhood, from about $4,800 annually to just over $8,000.

To avoid those charges, Clayton chopped down a tree that overlooked the building and trimmed several others so that a garbage truck could pull into the driveway.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Libby Schaaf referred questions to the city attorney’s office, whose spokesman declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.