When former City Attorney Mike Aguirre and former Chief Deputy City Attorney Maria Severson sued the city of San Diego on behalf of several residents — alleging improprieties in how the city imposed new trash collection fees on single-family homes in 2025 — there was little sign that City Hall considered the lawsuit a serious threat. That’s why attorneys for the city asked Superior Court Judge Euketa Oliver to issue a summary judgment dismissing the case.
But on April 9, Oliver didn’t just reject the city’s motion — she spotlighted the weakness of the city’s case. She noted an inexplicable fact: After the city revised its estimate that 285,000 homes would receive trash service down to 222,485, “the city’s projections show increasing — not decreasing — costs.”
This lent credence to the lawsuit’s key claim: The cash-strapped city was setting the fee not to reflect the actual cost of trash service but to generate tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue.
This background may explain why Wednesday’s announcement that the lawsuit had been settled was sharply criticized in letters to the editor and social media comments by deeply disappointed single-family homeowners who thought the deal provided too little relief.
Under the agreement, monthly trash fees for standard service will fall from the current level of nearly $44 to $38.75 beginning in July 2027, instead of increasing to $55 as previously planned. The reduced rate will remain in place for two years, but the city will not have to issue refunds for fees already paid.
In return, the lawsuit and a campaign led by the Lincoln Club to put a repeal of the trash fee before voters in November would be dropped.
But the city also made a concession that took many by surprise: It agreed to eliminate the hugely unpopular paid parking that began in Balboa Park in January by the end of 2026. Homeowners may wonder why another large group — the many city and county residents who love Balboa Park — arguably benefited the most from the leverage Aguirre and Severson had on the city in their lawsuit exposing its shabby and legally dubious trash practices. This is strange on its face.
Nevertheless, the U-T Editorial Board agrees with those who consider the settlement a very positive step forward. It shows San Diegans can fight City Hall. Our elected leaders were forced to make a moderate trash concession and a huge Balboa Park concession after a manic 17-month span in which they approved still more raises for city employees while imposing a wide range of new fees and taxes on residents and businesses.
We hope that reformers build on this momentum by backing a ballot measure with a properly crafted version of the flawed pension reforms that voters endorsed in 2012 — and through another ballot measure forcing the outsourcing of trash services. San Diego feels more salvageable than it did a week ago. But there is still much work to be done.