San Mateo County supervisors increase trash rates

Lillian Clark, program manager for the county’s Office of Sustainability, said the difference in the two rates was because North Fair Oaks is a more condensed residential area, while the other areas served by the authority are in the hills, which makes for longer truck collection times and higher labor costs for those routes. 

The rate increase in North Fair Oaks will apply to most residential customers who have 64-gallon carts or two 32-gallon carts, as well as commercial, mixed-use and residential customers with more than five units who have 32-gallon carts. 

In other unincorporated parts of the county where collection services are governed by the board, the rate will increase for most residential customers with 20-, 32- and 64-gallon carts. Residential customers with more than five units, commercial and mixed-used customers will have the rate apply to 32- and 64-gallon carts.

The board also welcomed new county poet laureate Jorge Argueta during its meeting Tuesday.

Prior to the board’s vote on the garbage rate increase, Argueta read his bilingual poem “Earth, Little Earth,” after greeting the supervisors in Nawat, his native language in El Salvador.

“Some call me planet, others nature, others creation. I like it best when they call me Mother Earth—Little Earth,” he said in the board chambers. 

Argueta is the county’s fourth poet laureate and first to identify as indigenous and as Latino, according to Supervisor Noelia Corzo’s introduction. He is originally from El Salvador, is a resident of Daly City and the author of bilingual children’s books.