Pacifica says Coastside Scavenger overcharged residents

The city of Pacifica says Coastside Scavenger, which also serves the Midcoast, may have overcharged Pacificans, and dumped green waste without a permit for years, reports Julia Scott in the County Times.

At issue is whether Coastside Scavenger, along with its sister recycling company, Seacoast Disposal, overcharged residents $634,200 over a five-year period while raising its rates almost yearly.

More than half of that money — $387,000 — was charged to ratepayers as the price of trucking an unknownamount of organic yard waste to the Picardo Ranch at the outer edge of Pacifica’s Linda Mar neighborhood. At the time, the ranch was held in trust by Louis Picardo, the owner and founder of Coastside Scavenger.

[Coastside Scavenger general manager, Chris] Porter said the company dumped the yard waste at the ranch in 2001-05 to pioneer a worm-composting program. The goal was to distribute the compost to residents to use in their yards, she said.

But the company could not produce records of ever dumping anything at the Picardo Ranch, according to the audit. Coastside Scavenger charged residents higher user rates each year for the price of trucking material to the site.

The city also says that Coastside Scavenger charged residents a quarter million dollars for items that should have been billed to Seacoast Disposal.