KERN TRASH PLAN PICKS UP SPEED ILLEGAL DUMPING TARGETED.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

ROSAMOND - Kern County supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with a proposal that would require Rosamond, Mojave, Tehachapi and Boron homeowners and businesses to pay for trash pickup service.

The supervisors set a date of May 20 for a protest hearing on the mandatory trash collection service plan, under which homeowners would be charged $18.91 a month for mandatory trash collection service as a way to help curb illegal dumping in and around east county communities.

``The Waste Management Department feels that beginning universal collection in highly populated areas of eastern Kern County will be a good starting point in the effort to reduce illegal dumping in the area,'' Daphne Washington, director of the Waste Management Department, said in a letter to the board.

The plan was approved without comment Tuesday afternoon in Bakersfield in a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Barbara Patrick absent.

Public meetings on the proposed will be held in each of the four communities prior to the May 20 meeting, county officials said.

If a majority of residential property owners protest in writing against the proposed fee, it will not be placed on the tax roll, officials said.

Requiring residents and businesses to pay for trash service, supporters say, will make it less likely that people wanting to avoid trash or landfill fees will load a pickup truck full of trash, haul it into the desert and dump it.

In an interview last week, Supervisor Don Maben, whose 2nd Supervisorial District includes all four towns covered by the plan, said illegal dumping was the No. 1 issue voters wanted to talk to him about during his election campaign last fall.

A similar ordinance was put into effect for metropolitan Bakersfield in 2000. County officials said they have seen significant lessening of illegal dumping in that area.

The proposal calls for setting a rate of $18.91 per month for parcels with one or two residential units; $85.69 for parcels with three residential units; and $110.63 per month for parcels with four residential units.

The proposal calls for limiting rate hikes to the lesser of 5 percent or the consumer price index.

The proposal requires that all residential and nonresidential properties, excluding vacant and uninhabitable property, have garbage collection service from a franchise garbage hauler.

The plan calls for placing the trash collection fee on the property tax rolls beginning Jan. 1. The fee will pay for once-a-week trash collection plus a regular bulky item waste collection service.