September 21, 2021

In an indicator of just how many fingers disgraced permit expediter, contractor and confessed federal criminal Walter Wong had in how many San Francisco pies, a settlement with him ratified by the Board of Supervisors last week includes a $387,000 credit to Wong for garbage can parts.

This equipment is referred to obliquely in the actual settlement as “a credit of $386,933.94 for goods and services already received by the City from Alternate Choice, LLC.”

Mission Local, however, has confirmed that these “goods” are garbage-can parts for the much-maligned “Renaissance” bins procured from the Wong-affiliated Alternate Choice in a $5.2 million contract. The parts had been obtained by the city, but had not yet been paid for — and the $387,000 credit offsets a larger $1.7 million fine levied against Wong.

San Francisco is in the midst of a year long process of designing and producing a new, custom-made trash can — an exercise that has required a prohibitive amount of time and could result in garbage bins costing more per unit than a decent used car.

The present trash cans, whose wonderful performance induced — and justified — the process of designing a can from scratch and building it, were produced by one of the city’s most notorious fixers. And, thanks to this $387,000 worth of cans and parts, the procurement process can go on; without these parts, it would have been even more challenging to maintain our deteriorating extant cans.

Wong, who was swept up in the ongoing corruption probes stemming from the January, 2020, federal charges leveled against former Public Works boss Mohammed Nuru, was born in Hong Kong in 1948 and emigrated to San Francisco 23 years later. He ascended from positions as a janitor and busboy to become a contractor, major landowner and, perhaps most saliently, a permit expediter.

It is hard to understate the amount of control Wong exercised over this city’s Department of Building Inspection, for a generation. He ran a de facto department within a department, seeded with his allies to handle his matters, up to and including former director Tom Hui.

Wong copped to fraud and money-laundering charges and pledged to cooperate with the feds. He did: His fingerprints were all over the charges leveled against former PUC boss Harlan Kelly in November, 2020. Kelly was accused of taking bribes from Wong in return for aid in obtaining a lighting contract (Wong ultimately failed to land the contract; jarringly, within the charging documents, a conversation between Wong and Nuru is recounted, in which the latter tells Wong he had no chance at the contract because a competitor bribed Kelly more).

The settlement ratified by the Board of Supervisors last week dings Wong $1.45 million for contracts he received without benefit of the competitive process and $318,000 in ethics fines and fees. He will also not collect $164,000 in work performed but not yet paid for in an emergency Public Works contract.

Perhaps most consequently, however, the settlement bars Wong from permit-expediting for five years — the maximum debarment period allowed under city law.

The notion of getting replacement parts from Wong for the janky and inadequate cans he provided the city was greeted with some degree of bitter mirth within City Hall. One official liked it to a movie in which a villain is visited in prison — say, Hannibal Lecter — and asked to provide a favor.

Mission Local’s questions to Public Works regarding just how many garbage cans and/or parts one gets for $387,000, and how many years of maintenance this is projected to provide, have not yet been answered.

Mission Local covers San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission, a neighborhood with all of the promise and problems of a major city. You can support Mission Local here.

The post Metropolis Of San Francisco’s Settlement With Walter Wong Consists of $387K Price Of Rubbish Can Elements appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN RAMON (KPIX) – Some friendships leave a lasting impression. On Thursday, a young boy who faithfully waits for a buddy to stop at his San Ramon driveway every week had one last meeting with his unusual buddy.

We all know the deal on Trash Day. It is important to get the garbage cans on the street in good time for garbage collection. It’s a chore for most of us, but for a little boy who lives in San Ramon, garbage day is full of excitement and anticipation.

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Five-year-old Finn Maier had been listening to the familiar noise every Tuesday for two years and ran outside.

“There is Todd!” Finn calls when his friend stops at the curb.

“He was a little shy at first and just waved and we’re friends,” explains Todd Gonzales, a driver who works for garbage and recycling company Alameda County Industries.

Gonzales has been in business since 1994. He tells KPIX that he has met a lot of people on his routes, but none like Finn.

“Every day at 5 a.m. – rain or shine – he’s there with a big smile. “Hello Todd!” He’s so happy, it’s contagious. It makes my day, “said Gonzales with a grin.

Finn’s family moved to the Bay Area just before the pandemic.

“Everything was shut down and we were basically all alone,” said Kim Maier, Finn’s mother.

For Finn – who was born with Down syndrome – Garbage Day became something to look forward to during COVID. He could rely on that.

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“It was actually one of the first relationships he was able to build because he consistently got to know Todd,” said Kim.

And so a unique friendship developed between the special little boy and his weekly visitor.

“He does as much for me as I do for him,” Todd admitted. “I’m leaving with a big smile. So it makes my day too. I am grateful for that. “

“One day Todd came and Finn was gone and he said, ‘Hey, where’s our little buddy?” And I said,’ Oh, he started school and is leaving before you get here, ‘”Kim said. “And the next week Todd was back. He changed his whole route just so he could see Finn before he went to school. “

“I didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t want him to miss it either, ”Gonzales said.

The two friends had a bittersweet last visit on Thursday, with Gonzales taking a special trip to Maier’s house. Finn’s family is moving to Southern California, so Todd Finn brought a special gift for the last time they met before they moved.

“It’s a garbage truck! Finn shouted after pulling a toy truck out of a gift bag.

Finn also gave Todd a present: a book with memories of the two of them

“This is my favorite book. You know that. That’s my favorite, ”Todd said to Finn before they hugged one last time and Todd continued on his way.

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It’s a friendship that both of you will remember for a lifetime. Todd hopes the family’s next trash collector in San Diego will take good care of Finn.

The post San Ramon Boy Finds Particular Good friend in Rubbish Truck Driver – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN RAMON (KPIX) – Some friendships leave a lasting impression. On Thursday, a young boy who faithfully waits for a buddy to stop at his San Ramon driveway every week had one last meeting with his unusual buddy.

We all know the deal on Trash Day. It is important to get the garbage cans on the street in good time for garbage collection. It’s a chore for most of us, but for a little boy who lives in San Ramon, garbage day is full of excitement and anticipation.

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Five-year-old Finn Maier had been listening to the familiar noise every Tuesday for two years and ran outside.

“There is Todd!” Finn calls when his friend stops at the curb.

“He was a little shy at first and just waved and we’re friends,” explains Todd Gonzales, a driver who works for garbage and recycling company Alameda County Industries.

Gonzales has been in business since 1994. He tells KPIX that he has met a lot of people on his routes, but none like Finn.

“Every day at 5 a.m. – rain or shine – he’s there with a big smile. “Hello Todd!” He’s so happy, it’s contagious. It makes my day, “said Gonzales with a grin.

Finn’s family moved to the Bay Area just before the pandemic.

“Everything was shut down and we were basically all alone,” said Kim Maier, Finn’s mother.

For Finn – who was born with Down syndrome – Garbage Day became something to look forward to during COVID. He could rely on that.

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“It was actually one of the first relationships he was able to build because he consistently got to know Todd,” said Kim.

And so a unique friendship developed between the special little boy and his weekly visitor.

“He does as much for me as I do for him,” Todd admitted. “I’m leaving with a big smile. So it makes my day too. I am grateful for that. “

“One day Todd came and Finn was gone and he said, ‘Hey, where’s our little buddy?” And I said,’ Oh, he started school and is leaving before you get here, ‘”Kim said. “And the next week Todd was back. He changed his whole route just so he could see Finn before he went to school. “

“I didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t want him to miss it either, ”Gonzales said.

The two friends had a bittersweet last visit on Thursday, with Gonzales taking a special trip to Maier’s house. Finn’s family is moving to Southern California, so Todd Finn brought a special gift for the last time they met before they moved.

“It’s a garbage truck! Finn shouted after pulling a toy truck out of a gift bag.

Finn also gave Todd a present: a book with memories of the two of them

“This is my favorite book. You know that. That’s my favorite, ”Todd said to Finn before they hugged one last time and Todd continued on his way.

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It’s a friendship that both of you will remember for a lifetime. Todd hopes the family’s next trash collector in San Diego will take good care of Finn.

The post San Ramon Boy Finds Particular Buddy in Rubbish Truck Driver – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Recology is no stranger to trouble.

The San Francisco garbage giant, and its predecessor firms, have been plagued by scandal for decades.

A company executive once conspired to bribe a public official in Southern California. A subsidiary of Recology was investigated by the FBI for hiring a prominent state politician to further its interests. Down in San Jose, the company was accused of conspiring to bribe the mayor to influence its contract.

Yet none of these controversies stopped Recology from leveraging its longstanding monopoly on waste collection in San Francisco to build a garbage empire that spans the West Coast, from California to Washington to Oregon.

Now, a new cascade of developments surrounding Recology and the ongoing corruption investigation at San Francisco’s City Hall could weaken that empire. The scandal led to the company and its subsidiaries agreeing to pay major penalties to both the federal government and The City, hoping to make things right and forestall renewed calls to dismantle its long-held local monopoly.

The scandal with The City directly involved the rates San Franciscans pay for garbage collection, giving new leverage to Recology critics who argue that breaking up the monopoly would drive down costs for local ratepayers. As it stands, the owner of every home and business, or their tenant, in San Francisco is required by law to pay Recology for trash pick-up.

How did we get here? In the nearly two years since authorities arrested San Francisco’s former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru on fraud charges, the probe has ensnared a bevy of city officials and contractors, including two recently departed Recology executives in charge of the company’s local operation. Last month, three Recology subsidiaries admitted to conspiring to bribe Nuru in exchange for his help raising garbage rates.

Retired Judge Quentin Kopp, a longtime Recology critic who has tried to break up the monopoly for years, said the bribery scandal highlights the importance of the exclusive arrangement to the company’s bottom line and reveals the ends to which its representatives were willing to go to maintain it.

“What they have done is insinuate themselves in all the city departments which affect their monopoly,” he said. “You have got to keep the monopoly.”

To understand how the company came to control — and, as critics say, exploit — this lucrative monopoly, one has to go back to the very beginning.

Pasquale, Domenic and Alfred Fontana work on a horse-drawn garbage wagon in 1932. The three brothers, all Italian immigrants, were one of many garbage “scavengers” who were integral in the founding of companies that eventually became Recology. (San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)

Scavengers and scandals

Recology’s roots go back more than a century, when Italian immigrants, known as scavengers, hauled garbage across San Francisco on horse-drawn wagons, and the trash ended up dumped in the Bay.

Its earliest predecessor firms date back to 1920, when scavengers banded together to form two companies: the Sunset Scavenger Company controlled the residential parts of town, while the Scavenger’s Protective Association (later known as Golden Gate Disposal) worked downtown.

Its lasting power really came over a decade later, when voters approved an ordinance in 1932 that divided San Francisco into 97 garbage routes and allowed only permitted companies to work them. Soon after, its predecessor firms bought out all their smaller competitors and secured every permit issued under the ordinance, creating an early version of the monopoly.

Recology’s predecessor firms hauled large bags using scavenger wagons, shown here in 1936. (San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)

After becoming president of Sunset Scavenger in 1965, Leonard Stefanelli dreamed of uniting the two firms on the basis of their shared Italian heritage.

“La Cosa Nostra — ‘Our Thing’ — is a traditional term used to refer to the so-called Sicilian Mafia,” Stefanelli wrote before his death in a 2018 memoir entitled, “Garbage: The Saga of a Boss Scavenger in San Francisco.” “It aptly described the program that I was beginning to envision, if it became a reality.”

Stefanelli would ultimately be ousted before his dream came to fruition.

It wasn’t until 1987 that the two firms merged to become Norcal Waste Systems, creating the modern-day monopoly that exists today.

In 2009, the firm changed its name to Recology to reflect its expansion beyond Northern California and its commitment to the environment. The firm is now the only licensed refuse collector in San Francisco today, running a specialized composting and recycling operation that trucks away San Francisco’s garbage and dumps only what can’t be saved in a landfill.

But behind that story of innovation and expansion is a darker history of scandal.

In 1990, news broke that the FBI was investigating a Norcal company for hiring then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown as its private attorney while seeking to develop a landfill in Solano County. All parties denied wrongdoing at the time, and the probe did not ultimately result in criminal charges.

In 1999, Norcal became embroiled in a bribery scandal over a lucrative garbage contract while growing its business in Southern California. A Norcal vice president and a consultant for the firm pleaded guilty to federal charges for conspiring to bribe a top San Bernardino County official in exchange for his official influence. While Norcal cut ties with the executive and its consultant, the high-profile scandal tarnished the reputation of both the county and the company.

Then in 2006, years after the San Bernardino case, Norcal was caught up in another bribery scandal, this time involving an alleged backroom deal with then-San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales and a top aide. While Norcal was indicted, a judge ended up tossing the case, calling the allegations politics, not bribery.

While raising questions about its capacity for corruption, none of those scandals struck as close to home as the one embroiling Recology today.

Money and power

Under the 1932 ordinance, Nuru played a key role in setting garbage rates in San Francisco as the director of Public Works. He had a say in whether a panel known as the Rate Board should increase the rates Recology charged residents, and by extension its commercial customers.

Recology also wanted his help as a top official raising the fees it charged San Francisco to dump construction materials at a facility in The City.

So its San Francisco companies showered Nuru with gifts to please him, according to court documents in three cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed against the firms and two of their former executives, Paul Giusti and John Porter.

Every other month, Giusti arranged for a Recology company to cut a $30,000 check to a nonprofit called the Clean City Coalition. The coalition would then take a 5% cut and transfer the remaining funds to another nonprofit, the San Francisco Parks Alliance. There, the money landed in two accounts controlled by Nuru, including one prosecutors describe as his “slush fund.”

While federal authorities did not name the two nonprofits in charging documents, they have since been identified by the Controller’s Office.

Giusti funneled about $1 million from the Recology companies to Nuru in this way, prosecutors said. While the payments were ostensibly to benefit an anti-littering program called “Giant Sweep,” Nuru allegedly dipped into one of the funds to buy T-shirts, caps and other stuff for his staff, and also to help pay for increasingly luxurious Public Works holiday parties.

“Mohammed is the director of (Public Works) who ultimately signs off on our rates. Needless to say, keeping him happy is important,” Porter, who is accused of approving the payments, allegedly wrote in an email obtained by the FBI.

Keeping Nuru happy also meant cutting checks totaling $60,000 to a baseball charity for children, the Lefty O’Doul’s Foundation for Kids, prosecutors said. But instead of helping children, the money went toward putting on holiday parties.

On top of those payments, a Recology company hired his son as a laborer and funded paid internships for him at a nonprofit, where he remained on the payroll despite falling asleep at work, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

After conducting his own investigation into the payments, City Attorney Dennis Herrera concluded that Recology’s relationship with Nuru allowed its companies to overcharge San Franciscans nearly $95 million for garbage collection.

In December 2018, Recology and Public Works discussed an error in the rate-setting process that caused prices to go up for San Franciscans, Herrera said. But neither Recology nor Public Works corrected the problem — and Recology continued to overcharge its customers for two years, he said.

A Recology driver lines up recycling and compost bins for collection on Oct. 22. (Kevin N. Hume/The Examiner)

Paying penance

Recology now pledges to stay on the straight and narrow.

While disputing that the overcharging was intentional and describing the error in the rate-making process as a mistake, Recology has since admitted that its San Francisco companies engaged in a conspiracy to bribe Nuru.

Those companies, Recology San Francisco, Sunset Scavenger Company and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling, have reached an agreement with the City Attorney’s Office to refund ratepayers $95 million, return garbage rates back to justified levels and pay a $7 million civil penalty.

Separately, an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office will allow the Recology companies to avoid a fraud conviction by admitting to the conspiracy and paying a penalty of $29 million to the federal government.

While Giusti has agreed to cooperate with the investigation and plead guilty to bribery and fraud charges, cases against Nuru and Porter are pending.

Recology is now essentially asking San Francisco for forgiveness.

“This is a humbling moment for our company,” Recology spokesperson Robert Reed said. “Recology was born and raised in San Francisco, and has served this city for more than 100 years. We are proud to have built our nationally recognized recycling and composting program from the ground up.”

Recology shook up its leadership after the scandal broke. Longtime CEO Michael Sangiacomo retired at the end of 2020, and was replaced by former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Sal Coniglio.

In a video statement posted online in response to the agreement with federal prosecutors, Coniglio said the deal allowed Recology to “own up to the mistakes of the past, while continuing to serve you long into the future.”

“I want to make it clear that this type of mistake and this type of conduct was wrong and unacceptable,” said Coniglio, who Recology declined to make available for an interview. “We must ensure that nothing like this never happens again.”

‘The system has been exploited’

Supervisor Aaron Peskin is set on ensuring the corruption stops there.

Peskin is considering sponsoring a ballot measure that would break up the monopoly. He has formed a working group to examine different models for restructuring garbage collection in San Francisco.

Those options include allowing other companies to bid against Recology to provide garbage collection services, creating a municipally owned trash collector or reforming the 1932 ordinance to include anti-corruption measures.

“The system has been exploited,” Peskin said. “They clearly were charging more than they should, the system didn’t work and either we need an entirely new system or we have got to (implement) fail safes.”

Should Peskin decide to move forward with a ballot measure, he could face stern opposition from Recology.

In 2012, Recology outspent its opponents 55-to-1 to defeat the most recent of three attempts at the polls to inject competition into the garbage business, spending $1.7 million to crush his anti-monopoly ballot measure.

While Recology says it offers residents competitive rates compared to other parts of the Bay Area, opponents argue that opening up the business to competitive bidding would inherently lower costs for San Franciscans.

“That’s why for all city and county construction contracts, or equipment supply contracts, competitive bidding is required,” said Kopp, the retired judge. “There is no other monopoly in city and county government.”

Former Supervisor John Avalos was one of the few officials who expressed support for the 2012 measure. He recently described what it’s like to go up against the politically powerful company.

“It feels like intimidation, but you’re not quite sure where it’s all coming from,” Avalos said. “There are a lot of different groups that work together to create that pressure on you, and they come from the highest levels of government to the company itself, its lobbyists (and) labor organizations.”

The measure was rejected overwhelmingly, with nearly 77 percent of voters backing Recology.

Hanging in the balance for Recology is its lucrative monopoly. Over a year-long period ending in 2020, Recology companies reported $170 million in revenue from residential garbage collection alone, as well as another $166 million from the commercial side of the business, among other revenue streams.

Reed defended this monopoly by saying that it was beneficial for both San Franciscans and the environment. He said monthly charges for residents are less expensive in The City than for customers in Oakland and San Jose.

Residents pay $43.04 a month in San Francisco for basic trash pick-up services, compared to $52.36 in Oakland and $51.15 in San Jose, according to Reed.

By comparison, an Examiner review of monthly garbage rates on the Peninsula shows residents pay $31.31 for basic service in Daly City and $31.93 in San Bruno.

Reed defended the monopoly as being “heavily regulated.” He said Recology is committed to “delivering tremendous service and fair value to our customers, providing good-paying union jobs to local workers, and advancing industry-leading environmental programs.”

mbarba@sfexaminer.com

Bay Area Newssan francisco news

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Here was the plan being described to him, as far as Supervisor Matt Haney could parse it: In late 2018, San Francisco had embarked on a quest to design its own garbage can — from scratch. By the summer of 2021, two-and-a-half years later, an industrial design firm had completed the conceptual drawings for three models. In July, the Board of Supervisors would vote on spending $427,500, much of it to manufacture and test five prototypes of each model. The price tag for each prototype was estimated at between $12,000 to $20,000 apiece.

That was, in fact, the plan. So, Haney was confused. 

“I realize we’re pretty far down the path here already,” he said at a Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee meeting July 21. “But why did we choose this path to begin with? And why are we still doing this rather than putting out a bunch of different types of cans that already are produced, that are much cheaper, that are already performing well … in some other place … and then making a decision based on this? This is a very expensive, much longer, uncertain process that we’ve chosen.”

The Public Works department had an answer: Those other cans? Not sexy enough.  

San Francisco is “obviously very unique, and we weren’t happy with the look of those cans,” said then-interim Director Alaric Degrafinried, referring to the aesthetics of the off-the-shelf models. 

Some of the existing cans — the ones that cost much, much less than our prototypes and have performed ably elsewhere — may fulfill the actual, functional requirements of a trash can. But, again: Not sexy enough.    

They may not “necessarily be as pretty and as pleasing to the eye as the cans that are being designed for us right now,” Degrafinried said.

Six days later, Haney again questioned the process. “It was a decision that was made by the former DPW (Public Works) director” — accused federal criminal Mohammed Nuru — “and was a decision that the current DPW leadership is not even fully aware of in terms of why that decision was made.”

Still, Haney, like all his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, approved the plan to spend $427,500. We’re moving forward in the next stage: prototype manufacturing and testing of the cans we opted to redesign from scratch. Why? 

This is a story examining San Francisco’s bizarre pursuit of the perfect trash can: the time it has taken, the stunning amount of money being spent, and the baffling lack of curiosity on the part of many of San Francisco’s elected representatives and media observers in questioning the proposal by San Francisco Public Works to spend $427,500 to produce 15 prototype cans. Ultimately, San Francisco will spend millions of dollars to custom-produce 3,300 public trash for its use. 

How many millions remains an open question: The city’s initial request for proposals, in 2018, envisioned a top price tag of less than $1,000 a can. But that price has at least doubled, and could now hit as high as $5,000 a can, Public Works administrators indicated in the discussions on the process. They have since stepped back from those statements, but really, no one knows how much the cans will ultimately cost. 

What we have are estimates. San Francisco will spend from $6.6 million to $16.5 million to replace the city’s existing public trash cans, and those are estimates made at the present moment. Who knows what things will cost when the manufacturing actually commences. 

“The idea that San Francisco is so unique that we need a separate trash can from anyone deployed in any city around the world is preposterous,” Haney told Mission Local this month. “It’s something that reflects a broader and deeper brokenness of city government and the services it provides.”

Why did San Francisco decide to design its own trash can? 

The final decision on San Francisco designing its own trash can was made in 2018 by then-Public Works boss Nuru. While staff contributed input, Public Works spokeswoman Beth Rubenstein said, the last word went to Nuru, who, in January 2020, was arrested by the FBI and charged by the Department of Justice with fraud and lying to a federal agent. ​If convicted, he faces up to 25 years for various schemes, gifts and bribes; Nuru was the first domino to fall in San Francisco’s ongoing federal corruption scourge. 

While we cannot know what was in Nuru’s head in 2018, the fraud charges and litany of horrific details revealed by local and federal probing since January 2020 might have suggested to supervisors in 2021 that they take a closer look at the $427,500 they were being asked to spend at Nuru’s insistence. 

Already, they knew, Nuru had been responsible for a $5.2 million contract to buy the earlier, much-maligned “Renaissance” trash cans from Alternative Choice. That company, intriguingly, is under the aegis of former permit expediter and contractor Walter Wong, a longtime Nuru running buddy who has since pleaded guilty to federal fraud and money-laundering charges, and has cooperated with the feds to take down other San Francisco city officials. 

Other than Haney, however, no one appeared inclined to buck a decision Nuru had made. And, while Haney raised salient questions during hearings, he never pressed hard for answers — and, like his 10 colleagues, eventually voted to stay the course.   

Rubenstein from Public Works explained that in 2018, the department could not find a trash can that fulfilled an exacting list of features: a rolling inside can for easy emptying, a sensor to alert workers when a can is full, durability to withstand street life, and be tamper-proof. 

And “obviously,” she added, “they needed to be aesthetic.”

There were no off-the-shelf models that met most of those requirements, except for the Bigbelly. But those, at a cost of about $3,900 a can, were deemed too expensive. Nor were they particularly attractive, she said. The PEL can also fit most of the requirements. It costs $6,400, Rubenstein wrote in an email. At present, she wrote, these were “the only two off-the-shelf cans that we’ve found that come close to satisfying most of our programmatic requirements.”

Bigbelly cans are now used by several San Francisco Community Benefit Districts, which impose a local tax on businesses to cover special services, such as extra trash collection and street cleaning. The Tenderloin Community Benefit District, for example, installed 68 Bigbelly cans in a 26-block area. It rents them for $150 a month, or $1,800 a year each.    

Trash talk

Are we comfortable with a trash can that is effective, but it may not look as attractive on the streets?

Then-Interim Public Works Director Alaric Degrafinried

In many ways, replaying the meetings in which the city’s elected representatives discuss the decision to move forward on a $427,500 expenditure that will lead to a potentially far greater expenditure was reminiscent of Joan Didion’s scathing 1996 review of Bob Woodward’s style of portraying political events through the eyes of the main actors. She refers to Woodward as a stenographer rather than an inquisitive journalist. “These are books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent,” she wrote in the New York Review of Books. The same could be said of the discussions at the July 21 Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance committee and the July 27 full board meeting. 

With the exception of Haney, who received virtually no assistance from his colleagues, the supervisors focused on the existing cans, blaming them for the city’s trash problems. In both meetings, the green-hued, so-called Renaissance cans purchased from the Wong-associated company took on an anthropomorphic role of a wayward resident: unattractive, prone to create trash and attract dumping, and requiring far too much upkeep. 

San Francisco’s existing trash cans. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

At the July 21 meeting, District 11 supervisor Ahsha Safaí lamented that the current trash cans “blended so much into the landscape that at some point, in many ways, they just weren’t necessarily something that people respected and people used in the right way.” 

“They often make areas more dirty, not less,” added District 9 Supervisor Hllary Ronen at the full board meeting. 

Residents, then, were not to blame for dumping; the current trash cans caused dumping. Public Works and Recology were not responsible for failing to pick up trash, the trash cans created trash. 

Only District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar suggested that other factors might be in play. “ I just hope that we also pay attention to the picking up of the trash in those new, more attractive and better-designed cans,” she said. 

In the end, Degrafinried lamented, “we” have to make a decision. The “we,” in this case, appeared to be the supervisors. The decision, from Degrafinreid’s point of view, was this: “Are we comfortable with a trash can that is effective, but it may not look as attractive on the streets?”

His assertions might have elicited further questions from our elected supes on the alternatives; on what Public Works had learned in the nearly three-year process about the other available cans, such as prices and consumer satisfaction in the cities that used them; on whether San Francisco’s exacting requirements were simply too demanding; on how the initial $1,000 cost constraints in the RFP had spiraled out of control. 

But no one pressed Degrafinried.

Haney’s challenges also opened a door to potential follow-up questions: “One of the designs, it’s almost identical to a style that is in Washington, D.C.,” he offered at that same meeting. “So it’s just a surprise to me that there weren’t other ways to do this.”

Neither Safaí nor Gordon Mar, his colleagues on the Budget and Finance committee, pursued mention of the D.C. can (it costs $987, but has no sensor) or the other alternatives, including New York’s  $632 can, Sacramento’s $1,300 can; or the Los Angeles model at $449.51. Again, San Francisco simply wanted more than any of these other models offered. 

Instead of probing, Safaí spent most of his time making it clear that he wanted the prototypes tested in his district. 

“They look sleek, clean, (and it) looks like they’re easy to service and maintain and monitor,” Safaí said of the cans that are, indeed, sleek and appear to check nearly all the boxes of what Public Works wanted. “Appear,” however, is the operative word. They are only conceptual designs. As of yet, not even engineering drawings exist. 

The three models proposed by the Institute for Creative Integration that will be tested in the coming months. Photo by Lydia Chávez.

Nonetheless, Safaí noted that, in his district, “We’re ready to accept them.”

On July 27, the $427,500 expenditure to move forward with San Francisco’s quest to design the ultimate trash can from scratch was approved by all 11 supervisors. 

In explaining his “yes” vote, Haney wrote: “I can’t accept any further delays. This needs to get done. Voting down the expenditure altogether, which is money that had already long been set aside for this purpose, would have just set us back, possibly for years. The main concern I’ve had is not only with the cost, it’s how bungled and long of a process this has been.” 

And, now, that process continues. 

The supes moved on to other matters. The press, which enjoyed high-trafficking stories about the city’s inability to proffer a functioning trash can that costs less than a Yugo, moved on, too.

Is it now time to consider alternatives? 

At this point, the city has spent nearly three years and paid out $143,886 to the Oakland-based Institute for Creative Integration, according to its contract with Public Works. While not exactly chump change, it is still only a fraction of the $427,500 the city will now spend to manufacture the 15 test cans and the millions it will spend in mass-producing what Haney referred to this summer as a “designer” can.

But, as of last week, no contract has been signed between APROE and the city for the next stage. So perhaps it’s not too late to raise a few questions. For example: How did a trash can become so costly? 

The 2018 Request for Proposals (RFP) included a stipulation around costs, limiting bidders to “a combined unit cost of less than $1,000 each.”

Design criteria. San Francisco Public Works, RFP, Nov. 21, 2018, Design for SF’s new public trash receptacles.

The Institute for Creative Integration, one of two companies to compete for the project and the ultimate winner, reaffirmed that per-unit cost of $1,000 per can. That limit, however, never came up at any of the July meetings where supervisors considered the cans.  

By then, the predicted price of the mass-produced can had skyrocketed. Mission Local and The San Francisco Chronicle reported Public Works’ estimated cost of the 3,000-plus cans at $2,000 to $3,000 apiece, but Public Works acknowledged in hearings that it could be much higher. 

Haney asked the Public Works representatives at the Budget and Finance committee meeting on July 21 if the ultimate cost of the new design would be comparable to the off-the-shelf models the city planned to test in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.

The department would “come up with something that would be comparable to the cost of an off-the-shelf can, maybe slightly higher,” said Lisa Zhou, the Public Works project leader. “We don’t know. But if it were, it wouldn’t be significantly higher.“

Zhou never explained how the cost had jumped from $1,000 to potentially upwards of $5,000. No one ever asked about this, either. 

In a subsequent private meeting, Haney said, Public Works changed the estimate. “They told me that, actually, they believe that these can potentially be equal to or even cheaper than the off-the-shelf models,” Haney said when asked about the discrepancy. “I said, that’s not what you said in the committee. And they said, well, actually, that was wrong. We do believe it will be cheaper.” 

We don’t know what that belief is based on. 

Rubenstein did not recall such a high estimate and wrote in an email that the department aimed “for the lower number of $2k but need to give a range as there are many variables whose cost we cannot yet predict (for instance, design details, material cost, supply chain issues and manufacturing location which impacts shipping cost).” 

Shin Sano, the CEO of the Institute for Creative Integration, which has designed the three prototypes, thanked me for my insistent interest in their process but declined to answer a list of questions. Instead, he said, he would forward the questions to Public Works. 

Tom Dair, the creative director who submitted the proposal, never responded to an email asking for an interview. 

“Everyone was a little stumped” 

Steve Thompson, director of marketing and sales for BearSaver and Securr, which sells BearSaver trash bins, represented one of the seven companies that attended the 2018 pre-proposal conference meeting with San Francisco Public Works. 

Thompson’s company has sold some 1,000 trash bins to San Francisco parks, but designing a from-scratch concept model is not something that Securr does, he said. In his 22 years in the business, he added, he had not heard of a city designing a model from the ground up. 

A representative from another company, who declined to speak on the record, said “everyone was a little stumped” by Public Works’ decision to design its own model. He did not attend the meeting because, he said, his company would never do that; they make their own designs for sale. 

“There are companies who have done the research and groundwork … companies that have spent millions of dollars on how to build a smart trash can that makes sense. So the city is going back into the R&D portion of it and starting from scratch. Honestly, I don’t really know.”

Branch Creative, a San Francisco-based industrial design studio owned by Josh Morenstein and Nick Cronan, attended the pre-bid conference meeting in November, 2018. Earlier that year, the company had been one of two finalists for a different city project that involved designing new public toilets, and had lost out to another firm.

After that happened, Rubenstein, who had been the Public Works administrator on the toilet project, reached out in August, 2018, to see if Branch Creative would be interested in submitting a proposal to design a new trash can for the city, Morenstein said.  

They were. “We just wanted to do the project. We were like, ‘this sounds really cool,’” said Morenstein. “You know, I grew up in the city. My family had two long-term businesses here, we wanted to design something for the city.”  (Morenstein’s father owned a foundry in the city, and his family owned Just Desserts.)

So they drafted a proposal that went back and forth between Branch Creative and Public Works, according to Morenstein, who scrolled through old emails as we spoke. On Oct. 9, 2018, Morenstein said, they got an email asking if there was an expiration date on their $60,000 fee proposal. 

“We said ‘no,’” Morenstein said. Then, on Oct. 11, they got another email saying that Branch’s $60,000 design proposal was actually one of the strongest, but that  “upper management has decided to revamp the process and solicit proposals through a formal process,” Morenstein said. 

Morenstein and his partner were stunned and felt “dicked” around because they assumed they were close to a deal. Nevertheless, they attended the November meeting, which Morenstein described as confusing. 

“There were a lot of open issues,” Morenstein said, explaining that Lisa Zhou, the administrator, was unclear on what the city wanted and there were too many open-ended questions, such as whether the inside can was to be off-the-shelf or also a new design. (Ultimately, the three conceptual designs used both original designs for the inside can and off-the-shelf models.) 

Instead of submitting a proposal again, Branch Creative opted out.

And, like the price of the trash can, the price of the contract also jumped. 

Public Works’ RFP set a price tag of $85,000. The only other bid of the seven companies that attended the pre-bid meeting was submitted by Yamamar Architecture. Its price was $79,048. Yamamar could not be reached for comment. Its phone number no longer works and an email to Karen Mar, who submitted the proposal, bounced back. 

The Institute for Creative Integration’s winning bid was $143,886, more than double the amount Branch Creative had proposed in a pre-bid offer, and 69 percent higher than the initial price suggested by the RFP. 

San Francisco Public Works, RFP, Nov. 21, 2018, Design for SF’s New Public Trash Receptacles. Page 1.

Other models, other price points

Thompson from Securr still hopes that San Francisco tests one of his off-the-shelf models. It does not have a sensor system, but the city could contract with another company to do that.

Screenshots of the can Thompson would like to see the city test. It has no sensor. It sells for $1,600.

However, he warned, “simplicity is the key to a successful (trash) can.”  

He was unenthusiastic about the proposed prototypes using stainless steel. 

“They are just going to get beat up,” he said. “It’s a material that you might use for inside a hotel, but not on a city street.”

He understands, however, the lure of stainless steel. It’s attractive.

Jenny Frankel, the senior planning and development strategies manager for Seattle Public Utilities, just purchased 150 cans from Thompson. She warned at the start of our conversation that she could talk trash all day. 

The cans she purchased have no sensor, but she loves the way they can be lifted and dumped by the trucks and the wrap-around art feature. In her experience,  “There is not such a thing as a perfect public litter can,” Frankel said. “Different neighborhoods experience different issues. One can may work really well in one area and will do very poorly in another area.”

She’s hopeful about the 35-gallon trash cans Seattle has purchased.  She would have liked them to be less expensive, but steel costs went up and the art added to the final price. Each can costs $1,400.

Portland, another city Haney mentioned in the hearings, also purchased cans in 2020 from Thompson. They meet all of San Francisco’s requirements except the sensor. “We are considering adding them to some of our containers to prevent missed collections,” Quintin Bauer, public trash collection program manager for Seattle. But Portland is still assessing different solutions. 

No can is perfect, he cautioned. Cans require maintenance, cleaning and graffiti removal. Is it tamper proof? No can is, but, he wrote, “the locks are quick and simple to repair.” He likes the stainless steel, which, he wrote, “is very strong, but can be damaged if they are hit by cars at high speed.”

Portland pays $1,417 for the 35-gallon can and $1,851 for the 65-gallon can.  

Thompson would like San Francisco to try a similar can. He’s enthusiastic about the art wrap. Sensors could be added by another company. The one he has in mind for San Francisco costs around $1,600, including shipping, he says enthusiastically.   

It’s unclear if his can is on San Francisco’s list. Despite nearly three years of work, it’s unclear if San Francisco has a list. 

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