The San Diego City Council will vote Monday to partially reduce trash fees for single-family homes and roll back entirely paid parking in Balboa Park.
The decisions might be a foregone conclusion, with the council agreeing on paper to take those actions last month in order to potentially lose all the revenue in lengthy lawsuits.
However, the items will still be discussed in a public forum for the first time and are subject to the council's vote.
The decision behind closed doors on May 20 was a win for opponents of the hotly debated fees, but also represented a compromise by requiring a collection of homeowners suing the city over the trash fees to drop efforts to repeal the fees via ballot measure this fall.
However, it also means the city must find the lost revenue — or slash existing services — from somewhere else, as a tense budget process for the 2026-27 fiscal year enters its final weeks.
"The settlement is a compromise that resolves multiple existing threats that could have forced more than $150 million in additional cuts," Mayor Todd Gloria said. "To reach this agreement, both sides had to make concessions.
"It is not perfect or ideal, but my responsibility is to protect what matters most for San Diegans, and on the whole, this agreement does that by protecting San Diegans from far deeper cuts to essential services like police, fire protection, libraries, and parks."
The homeowners sued the city following the passage of Measure B, which ended more than 100 years of free trash pickup services for single-family homes. The plaintiffs alleged the fees violate Proposition 218, an initiative approved by California voters in 1996 that holds utility fees cannot exceed the costs of providing those services.
Former San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre, one of the attorneys representing the homeowners, said that while voters approved a monthly fee of between $23 and $29, the City Council approved imposing a nearly $44 monthly fee.
"This is draining money from people's homes and if they are not able to pay, they are terrified that they will be foreclosed on," Aguirre told Superior Court Judge Euketa Oliver earlier this month. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the trial over the trash fees was recessed on Wednesday and will likely be dismissed this week.
If passed Monday — and again at a second reading in several weeks — the fees will not be reduced to $29 per month, but they will be reduced to $38.75 starting next year — a number adjusted for inflation from the initial proposal in 2021.
As part of the compromise reached last month to drop the ballot measure efforts, the plaintiffs in the suit asked the city to concede the Balboa Park paid parking, which will roll back by the end of the year.
"As the only council member who voted against both the trash fee and Balboa Park parking fees, I am pleased that the City Council has agreed to this settlement," Councilman Raul Campillo said.
"Today, we are reducing the cost of living in San Diego and beginning the process of rebuilding San Diegans' trust in their city government. Seniors who live on a fixed income and families struggling to pay their bills will see more money in their pockets, and small businesses and museums in Balboa Park will see their customers return."
A potential settlement was also considered by the council in closed session earlier in May, but was rejected.
In June 2025, the City Council passed the solid-waste fee, breaking a 106-year-old precedent of the city not charging single-family homeowners a fee for trash pickup. The Lincoln Club Business League began collecting signatures this winter to place the issue on the ballot.
"This is a significant victory for San Diego taxpayers, working families, and common sense," said Kevin Faulconer, president and CEO of the Lincoln Club Business League and former mayor of San Diego.
"Because residents stood up and demanded accountability, the city came to the table. This agreement would save taxpayers more than $100 million over two years while restoring trust and transparency. Just as importantly, families should not have to pay to enjoy one of San Diego's greatest public treasures. The rollback of paid parking at Balboa Park is another major public policy win for residents across the city and shows that standing up for affordability and quality of life produces real results."
Then-Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and Councilman Joe LaCava proposed Measure B in 2022 to allow the city to collect a fee for solid waste collection, transport, disposal and recycling, including the cost of bins and force short-term vacation rentals, accessory dwelling units and "mini-dorms" currently receiving city trash pickup to pay for the services.
Single-family refuse pickup is funded by the city's general fund, which all residents pay into through property tax — whether they rent or own a single-family home, a condo or an apartment. The city takes away 300,000 tons of trash and 150,000 tons of recycling, compostables and yard waste annually.
"This is not a new cost, this is a cost that has been borne by those who do not receive city services," Elo-Rivera said last year.
The People's Ordinance, as the free trash pickup was nicknamed, had been criticized for years by activists for being inequitable because although every household pays property tax either directly or through rent, only single- family households received trash pickup at no additional charge. In 2009, a San Diego County grand jury concluded that the ordinance had "outlived its usefulness in a 21st century society."
In January, the city broke another precedent by charging San Diegans and visitors for parking in Balboa Park. The council partially walked that back in February by allowing city residents verified through an online portal to park for free all day at seven of the 12 lots in Balboa Park — Pepper Grove, Federal, Upper Inspiration Point, Lower Inspiration Point, Marston Point, Palisades and Bea Evenson lots.
More than 3,000 San Diegans registered to be verified for the resident free parking program by mid-April, and the city collected nearly $700,000 for operations and maintenance in Balboa Park. The zoo, which operates on an independent lease from the city, will allow members to continue to park for free.
In April, the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership announced that attendance at Balboa Park's museums was down 34% on average since paid parking went into effect, with some institutions dropping by 60%.
"This gives us a real light at the end of the tunnel," said Peter Comiskey, executive director of the partnership. "While this process was incredibly difficult, the ultimate resolution is very exciting for the future of Balboa Park. This is a meaningful moment that will preserve public access to one of San Diego's most treasured public spaces."
Some of the park's larger institutions predicted more than $10 million lost in revenue from the lowered attendance alone, and jobs and program losses are a real threat, Comiskey said.
