CHULA VISTA CITY COUNCIL RATIFIES TRASH EMERGENCY

Officials say waste hauler’s worker strike creates ‘extreme peril’

The Chula Vista City Council declared a local emergency at a special meeting Saturday as a result of the Republic Services waste hauler strike that began one month ago.

The unanimous vote ratified a decision Wednesday by City Manager Maria Kachadoorian. The declaration allowed her to recruit more than 30 city employees from the public works and parks departments, along with contractors from Work for Hope and the Alpha Project, to help pick up trash in neighborhoods where the overflow is worst.

“We actually have brought in bulldozers,” she said. “This has been quite an undertaking.”

Overflowing refuse is being removed first from apartment buildings and multiunit complexes because the need is greater there than in neighborhoods of single-family homes, she said.

“We are seeing the greatest impacts in our lowest-income parts of the city,” Kachadoorian said.

Republic Services has resumed some collections, but “is not back to normal by any means,” she said. “The accumulation from the holidays was just too much to handle.”

All yard waste collection has been stopped until the company can get caught up. Almost 200 of about 500 multifamily complexes have been addressed, and more than 54,500 pounds of trash have been collected, she said.

Council members Jill Galvez and Stephen Padilla encouraged employees to track potential violations of Republic’s contract so the city can seek damages.

“I don’t think it would be difficult to get even a conservative estimate of what those violations would be,” Padilla said. “I hope we are in the process of calculating potential damages.”

Estimates will be available by the end of the week, and “it is going to be a big number,” Kachadoorian said.

Galvez asked for additional street sweeping from the city and more vector control efforts from the county to prevent breakouts of hantavirus, cholera, hepatitis and other diseases.

“Trash, organic waste, and recyclables have accumulated throughout the city,” states a city staff report. “Food, yard waste and recyclables are being comingled and treated as trash, and that excess uncollected waste is exacerbating pest infestations and contaminating city streets and storm drains.”

People have been dumping trash at city offices, parks and recreation centers, where receptacles and bins are at capacity and overflowing, “creating conditions of extreme peril to the health and safety” of residents, the report states.

Republic has more than 250 trash collectors and contracts with Bonita, Chula Vista, Eastlake, and parts of the city of San Diego and rural San Diego County. The company also is expected to assume collections services in Carlsbad on July 1, after winning a 10-year, $28 million contract with the city in April over longtime service provider Waste Management.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said Friday that the company’s failure to resolve the dispute could lead to fines and a termination of its contract.

The Chula Vista meeting was moved to Saturday after technical issues interrupted the live video feed of the council’s meeting Friday.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com