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<\/a><\/p>\nThe garbage rate increase also includes yard trimmings, residential recycling and the city\u2019s cleanup campaign. The providers \u2014 Mission Trail Waste Systems, Green Waste Recovery and Recology \u2014 increased their rates by 4.7%, 3% and 5%, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city based the total rate increase on 4.5% water-sewer-trash index. More than 80% of customers will see a monthly rate increase between $0.94 and $1.73 or from $1.52 to $3.03 for bundled service.<\/p>\n
Council Member Raj Chahal has been critical of what the city charges for trash service. He said the increases are the result of a bad council decision in 2019, where the city opted against instituting a split-bin collection method.<\/p>\n
SPONSORED<\/p>\n
Although he acknowledged it wasn\u2019t an \u201capples-to-apples\u201d comparison, Santa Clarans pay between 27% and 66% more than Milpitas residents, depending on their bin size, and between 29% and 85% higher than Sunnyvale residents.<\/p>\n He said he didn\u2019t \u201cwant residents to pay for the mistakes of this council.\u201d<\/p>\n Council Member Kevin Park joined Chahal\u2019s concern, saying that the townhome rates baffled him since they don\u2019t jibe with the rest of the rates on a per-gallon basis.<\/p>\n But Mobeck said there is \u201cno easy way to compare\u201d cities, adding that Sunnyvale has its own solid waste plant, which changes the equation. If you slice the numbers differently, he added, Santa Clara\u2019s rates are actually better.<\/p>\n Santa Clara water and sewer rates also increasing<\/p>\n John Ramirez, director of water and sewer, presented the new water rates<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Water rates will increase 12.2%; sewer rates for single families will increase 12%, multi-family rates will increase 10%, and commercial rates will increase between 17% and 33%. Recycled water will increase 11.4%<\/p>\n Restaurants and industrial chemical businesses will see a large spike at 31% and 29%, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n Capital improvement amounts to $30.33 million this year and $29.44 million next year. Among the improvements are condition assessment, system and capacity improvements. The improvements help \u201cmaintain reliability,\u201d Ramirez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Water rate increases will have the average customer paying an additional $14.40\/month, with single-family residents seeing a roughly $7\/month increase.<\/p>\n The new garbage and water rates go into effect July 1.<\/p>\n Council members lament maintenance districts<\/p>\n Park also joined Council Member Suds Jain in taking issue with how much money the businesses in Franklin Square pay for maintenance of the public property there.<\/p>\n The city has budgeted $143,000 for maintenance of the mall. The property owners pay a flat $14,200. Prior to 2003, the owners paid 75% of the maintenance cost. That year, the owners opted to renegotiate the rate, and, despite a lack of support from the city employees, the council approved the current rate.<\/p>\n Mayor Lisa Gillmor recused herself since she is one of the owners.<\/p>\n Jain has taken issue with the distribution for years, saying the deal is a bad one for the city and adding a provision that the city reserves the right to dissolve the district at any time.<\/p>\n However, Mobeck said the council is hamstrung. It cannot impose new regulations without the consent of the owners, and, if the city dissolved the district, it would be on the hook for all the maintenance costs.<\/p>\n Park said the arrangement amounted to \u201ccollusion\u201d between \u201cseveral property owners, several people, several families and city council.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe always talk about how we don\u2019t want to give private entities a gift of public funds, but this absolutely looks like a gift of public funds to specific people,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we had another situation where we were paying 90% of the costs for another private entity, I think we\u2019d have other people complaining.\u201d<\/p>\n Park implored the city employees to look into options for getting out of the arrangement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another maintenance district also came before the council. The city\u2019s share of the convention center maintenance district \u2014 made up of the city, Hyatt and Techmart \u2014 is $1.16 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n Costs for maintenance increased by $2.54 million this year. That increase, Mobeck said, is because of the first phase of resealing the top deck of the parking garage. The city intends to do the project in $500,000 increments in a phased approach over the next few years.<\/p>\n To help cover the costs of the maintenance districts, Jain has repeatedly advocated for paid parking at the convention center and at Franklin Square.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mobeck said the city put out a request for proposal (RFP) in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n The council unanimously approved both items.<\/p>\n Contact David Alexander at d.todd.alexander@gmail.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Previous Santa Clara City Council Meetings: SPONSORED<\/p>\n![\"Davidkertes_ad\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Santa-Clara-Weekly-728x90-1-scaled.png\"\/)
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<\/a><\/p>\n
Santa Clara Tackles Employment Gaps, Overhauls Performance Reviews\u00a0<\/a>
City Establishes Special Event Zone, Bars ICE from World Cup<\/a>
Council Nixes Proposal to Move City Hall to Former Oracle Site<\/a><\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two seemingly routine items saw pushback from council members who claimed city agreements aren\u2019t benefiting residents. At its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2914,6036,2915,2916,2917,2918,88,90,89,197,2919,2920,2921,2922,2923],"class_list":["post-363062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-albert-gonzalez","tag-bay-area-news","tag-karen-hardy","tag-kelly-cox","tag-kevin-park","tag-raj-chahal","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara","tag-santa-clara-city-council","tag-santa-clara-mayor-lisa-gillmor","tag-santa-clara-weekly","tag-silicon-valley-voice","tag-suds-jain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}