Thousands of California homeowners slammed with bogus trash charges as city council blames the mayor: ‘He needs to step down’

Up to 90,000 San Diego homeowners may have been socked with bogus trash charges on their property tax bills, with some residents overcharged by $1,000 or more in a blunder that has City Hall critics demanding heads roll.

Councilmember Henry Foster put the mayor’s leadership directly in the hot seat, questioning whether Todd Gloria should remain in charge of the city’s daily operations.

“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.”

The mess involves San Diego’s new solid waste fee and could affect between 80,000 and 90,000 homeowners.

While some residents were undercharged, others were hit with hefty overcharges, including bills that were more than $1,000 too high.

Gloria, a Democrat, said the city’s own Environmental Services trash portal had the correct information.

The problem came when data was submitted to San Diego County. What the county received did not match the city’s records, and those figures were used to produce the property tax bills.

The mayor acknowledged that the city’s quality control should have caught the problem before it reached homeowners.

“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.

Gloria said corrected information would be sent to the county and promised affected homeowners would be made whole.

He said the city had not yet determined how much the cleanup would cost.

Foster, who voted against the trash fee, was having none of it.

“This so-called error. This is unacceptable,” Foster said.

And his criticism goes beyond the bungled bills.

After Gloria fired former Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan, the mayor took over the COO’s responsibilities and assumed direct control of the city’s day-to-day operations.

Foster has threatened to pursue a ballot measure to strip power from the mayor and dismantle San Diego’s strong-mayor system if a qualified administrator is not brought in.

All nine sitting members of the San Diego City Council are registered Democrats.

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