Almonte Board Rejects Garbage Rate Hike

For the past several weeks, Mill Valley Refuse Principal Jim Iavarone has been making the rounds in Marin, asking boards and city councils to approve his company’s request for a .

He’s had success at each stop, garnering approvals from the , the Homestead Valley Sanitary District, the Strawberry Recreation District and the Marin County Board of Supervisors, among others.

In seeking the approval this week from the , this time for a rate hike of 11.4 percent for Almonte’s 785 ratepayers, Iavarone was denied.

“The board did not feel that the amount of the increase was justified at this time,” said board secretary Lew Kious. “(Mill Valley Refuse) did not adequately justify the amount of the rate increase, and we requested more information and possibly a lower amount for the increase.”

The decision wasn’t unanimous, with Kious and board president Kevin Reilly voting against the hike and Loretta Figueroa and Frank Shirado voting in favor. At the same meeting, the board seated a new member, Emily Landin, who sat out the night’s votes until she gets up to speed on board matters.

Iavarone said his company is putting together a revised rate hike request based on language in its contract with the district allowing rates hikes for higher fuel costs, rising insurance costs and larger fees from the Redwood Landfill where its trash goes. Those costs were three of the primary factors cited by Mill Valley Refuse in its request.

The new rate hike request, Iavarone said, would be approximately 7.8 percent. He expects to present it to the district next week.

Mill Valley Refuse sought similar double-digit rate hikes a year ago as it implemented its composting service, saying customers could make up for the higher rate by diverting some of their garbage to its then-new compost service and thus downgrading their service to smaller, cheaper garbage can. Almonte declined to add composting service at that time.

The Almonte board also voted this week not to follow in increasing its sewer rates, having done so to $400 annually in 2010.