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From:James Cowing <br />To:publiccomment <br />Subject:Fwd: Proposed Rate Increase Written Protest <br />Date:Thursday, January 23, 2025 2:44:16 PM <br />You don't often get email from james.a.cowing@gmail.com. Learn why this is important <br />I was instructed to forward my Protest email message (below) to this address to ensure it is <br />read at the Monday City Council meeting. Please confirm receipt. <br />James A Cowing <br />650-436-8990 <br />Sent from my iPhone <br />Begin forwarded message: <br />From: James Cowing <james.a.cowing@gmail.com> <br />Date: January 23, 2025 at 14:18:37 PST <br />To: council@redwoodcity.org <br />Cc: "James (Jim) Cowing" <james.a.cowing@gmail.com>, Manette Cowing <br /><mycowing@gmail.com> <br />Subject: Proposed Rate Increase Written Protest <br />Dear Redwood City Council <br />My spouse and I are long-time (35 years) residents of Redwood City. <br />I am writing to protest the proposed monthly solid waste rate increase to be <br />discussed on January 27 by Council. <br />We understand that rates may need to be increased to address rising costs <br />mentioned including labor, fuel/power, operating and disposal/processing. <br />However, we ADAMANTLY protest RC’s choice to UNFAIRLY penalize those <br />customers like ourselves who already use the smallest collection bins, and give <br />inequitable rate increases to those with larger bins. Reviewing the current and <br />proposed rates, the increase represents over 25% increase for 20-gallon carts, <br />15.3% for 32-gallon, 8.1% for 64-gallon and 4.9% for 96-gallon. The reason for <br />this inequity in price increase defies logic. Redwood City should be incentivizing <br />people who put out more solid waste to reduce their overall waste, not penalizing <br />those who already minimize waste or have smaller family size. I have reviewed <br />the increases for neighboring cities such as San Mateo which is also proposing to <br />increase monthly rates, but even their increases are percentage-wise higher for <br />larger can sizes (21% for 32 gallon, 13.3% for 64 gallon and 9.5% for the 96 <br />gallon collection carts). <br />Households like ours that are minimizing solid waste to only 20% are unfairly <br />being burdened with carrying the cost of increases for all. What business can