From: on behalf of
To: Sandra Maurer; City Council
Subject: Re: Support for Recology is Supporting our Community Date: Tuesday, January 7, 2025 5:44:15 AM
We are prepared to attend the council meeting with further pushback on this.
It’s rather interesting and baffling to all of us that the city is acknowledging the higher rates for compost and recycling from SCRR as noted in the PD article, and attempting to note “cart size” as a solution to lower costs. Again I will reiterate - I’ve been a certified green business for over 5 years and was formerly on the zero waste committee. I am incredibly familiar with trash and can guarantee I am using the right cart size, as it is filled before pick up each week.
Majority of my trash as a green business is recycling and compost. You’re essentially incentivizing using the landfill more over the environmentally responsible and state mandated recycling and compost. This directly goes against Sebastopol’s values, my personal values as someone who cares about the environment, as well as my business’ values. It is a true shame that the environmental factor in all of this is being completely ignored by the council. The fact that you would rather pay an out of county company for services further reinstates your lack of care for supporting our local community. Dollars need to stay as local as possible.
I’d also like to point out that no one, including your incredibly flawed staff report, is capable of providing a real quote to my business or any other business that has inquired with SCRR. So if you want to promise lower rates with SCRR - prove it with actual numbers. So far the bill I have seen, which you again and again fail to acknowledge, is $700 higher than Recology. Sending me the email address contact for SCRR is a total waste of time, you’re trying to redirect concerns to someone who is incapable of even addressing them without a contract with the city. SCRR will not provide us with any real information.
On Monday, January 6, 2025, Sandra Maurer <[email protected]> wrote:
Please consider attending the council meeting tomorrow night. There will be a full presentation. ---
Sandra Maurer
Sebastopol City Councilmember
On Jan 6, 2025, at 4:40 PM, Danielle Connor < wrote:
Our goal, and that of the small business and greater community at large, is for the vote to at least be delayed or SCRR be declined to be the service provider. I know the many emails in your inbox express the same, and once again you are failing to listen to your constituents. All I have are the facts, which clearly show SCRR as being a horrible choice for our community.
On Monday, January 6, 2025, Sandra Maurer <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Danielle,
The ad hoc committee’s reason for choosing SCRR was to obtain the best service at the best rates for our residents and businesses. We believe we have done that. SCRR is committed to helping right size garbage service including recycling and compost. If the SCRR contract is approved you can contact them for an evaluation for Retrograde.
The contact at SCRR is [email protected]
Best,
Sandra Maurer
Sebastopol City Councilmember
On Jan 6, 2025, at 9:34 AM, Danielle Connor < wrote:
Please see this letter from Recology. As noted, in my original email in the attachment, our projected bill for our building is also showing a nearly $700 increase. The staff report is lacking information from SCRR and therefore, transparency. This is not less expensive, it is drastically more expensive.
On Monday, January 6, 2025, Sandra Maurer <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Danielle,
I am not intending to be dismissive. I am intending to explain how we got where we are. I wanted to keep Recology.
I will ask about your situation and get back to you.
Cambridge Palm & Tombe Realty, our landlord,
would face a $698.94 monthly increase under
SCRR—a staggering 33.87% increase compared
to Recology for one single building's service. I
attached our bill for you to plainly see the facts.
This is largely due to drastically higher costs for
recycling and composting.
---
Sandra Maurer
Sebastopol City Councilmember
On Jan 6, 2025, at 8:16 AM, Danielle Connor
wrote:
Your dismissive comments continue to show your inability to listen to your community and the constituents who elected you. Many people have spoken - we do not want SCRR as our service provider for all of the reasons listed in my email. Please take a moment to go back and read it, clearly Recology is the better choice for Sebastopol.
On Mon, Jan 6, 2025 at 8:08 AM Sandra Maurer
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Danielle,
Thank you for writing to council to express your concerns. Please see the attached report pg. 5,6, and 7 for a rate comparison between SCRR and Recology.
When the need for a new garbage contract came to council in April 2023, the vote to renew the contract with Recology was split 3/2. I was one of the three who supported renewing the contract because I had received many comments in support of Recology's services, I believed their services were excellent, and staff had asked to extend the contract. Two council members wanted to go out for proposals. The council created an ad hoc committee and I served, and still serve on it, as does Vice Mayor Jill McLewis and the assistant city manager, public works director and the city engineer. I fully intended and believed that we would be able to negotiate a new contract with Recology, but after months of effort we failed. Their rate increases were too high and they were inflexible. It was a very disappointing experience.
Next we brought it back to council. The council voted 4-0 (one council member was absent) to go out for proposals. There were two proposersRecology and Sonoma County Resource Recovery (SCRR) who currently serves Windsor. I studied the proposals very carefully. Although the scoring for both was relatively close, the adhoc committee was in full agreement to switch to SCRR. They are smaller, have a better service model, and they were more responsive to our needs. Their proposed rates are below Recology and they are committed to help residents and businesses right size their containers. Throughout the process SCRR demonstrated and we believed they are a better fit for Sebastopol.
Warm regards,
Sandra Maurer
Sebastopol City Councilmember
On Jan 6, 2025, at 6:33 AM, Danielle Connor
< wrote:
Dear Members of the Sebastopol City Council,
I am writing to express my strong support for retaining Recology Sonoma Marin as Sebastopol’s trash service
provider. Choosing SCRR instead of Recology is not in the best interest of our community, as it will negatively impact both residents and businesses.
SCRR’s proposed rates are significantly higher, especially for commercial and multi-family customers. For example,
Cambridge Palm & Tombe Realty, our landlord, would face a $698.94 monthly increase under SCRR—a staggering 33.87% increase compared to Recology for one single building's service. I attached our bill for you to plainly see the facts. This is largely due to drastically higher costs for recycling and composting. Such rate hikes discourage participation in environmentally crucial programs like recycling and
composting, and will trickle down to small businesses and residential communities who are lease-holders.
Additionally, SCRR does not have a local recycling facility, transporting materials out of the county to facilities with lower processing capacity. This will undermine
Sebastopol’s recycling rate, increase greenhouse gas
emissions, and contradict our city’s sustainability values.
In contrast, Recology is an employee-owned company with a state-of-the-art facility that properly recycles 85% of collected materials. They actively support our community by providing exceptional service, transparency, and resources for local events. Recology’s proposed rates are also more
affordable for the majority of residential customers, including a $4 per month savings on the widely used 32-gallon garbage cart. Recology also donates waste bins to local events and has a strong community relationship we should continue to foster.
It is important to note that SCRR is part of a larger, nonlocal corporation, which means profits are more likely to leave our community rather than being reinvested locally.
In comparison, Recology’s employee-owned model ensures
that profits stay within the organization, benefiting workers and supporting community initiatives. Choosing SCRR would take money away from Sebastopol and concentrate it in a larger corporate entity with less stake in our local well-being.
This information is present on their website and with a quick Google search, you can clearly see the corporations that own them, and that they are not local. Presenting this company as a small local entity is plain misinformation.
Sebastopol is already grappling with rising costs from PG&E rate increases and water rate hikes. Our small businesses, the backbone of our local economy, are struggling to stay afloat. In the past year, we’ve seen far too many closures, and further cost increases could drive even more out of our community. We need city council members who understand
that keeping costs down as much as possible for both small businesses and residents means that our local economy will thrive.
Sebastopol prides itself on being environmentally conscious and community-focused. SCRR’s poor track record in
Windsor—marked by customer complaints, lack of
transparency, and rising costs—further demonstrates they are not aligned with these values.
I would also like to address a concern regarding responses from Council Member Saundra to constituents’ inquiries.
Some of these responses have come across as dismissive of valid concerns, suggesting they are not real despite the availability of clear, fact-based rate comparison data
showing SCRR to be more expensive than Recology. It is
crucial that our leaders acknowledge and engage with these well-supported concerns in a meaningful and transparent way, your job is to listen to the constituents that elected you and not passively brush off their concerns with no data or concrete information.
I urge you to prioritize the interests of Sebastopol’s
residents and businesses by maintaining our partnership with Recology Sonoma Marin. Their commitment to
affordability, sustainability, and community support makes them the clear choice for our city.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Danielle Connor & Casey Lanski
Owners, Retrograde Coffee Roasters
photo Danielle Connor, she/her
Co-Founder, Head of Operations,
Retrograde Coffee Roasters
www.retrograderoasters.com
--
<Screenshot 2025-01-06 at 6.29.24 AM.png><Screenshot
2025-01-06 at 6.28.58 AM.png><Screenshot 2025-01-06 at
6.29.11 AM.png><Screenshot 2025-01-06 at
6.29.02 AM.png><Retrograde : Tombe Example Bill SCRR vs Recology.png>
<IMG_3937.jpeg>