LAKE ISABELLA, Calif. — For many Kern River Valley residents that showed up to the public information session held by Kern County Public Works on Thursday, the issue at hand felt personal. A proposed universal collection area would cost property owners in Lake Isabella and Bodfish and extra 558 dollars a year, the highest fee in all of Kern County attached to proposed collection areas.
Frustration often boiled over during the second half of the meeting, residents nodding along and clapping as other residents vocalized their anger over the new fee.
A community that has often felt overlooked by the county say they are unfairly shouldering the burden of a state law that requires organic waste and recycling be widely implemented.
Representatives of Kern County Public Works maintained that they believe universal collection is the most effective way to comply with the state law. Under their proposed plan, certain property owners in Lake Isabella and Bodfish would be required to pay a yearly fee that would go toward paying a franchise hauler to pick up trash from their homes that has been separated into three bins for different types of waste.
“Why am I being punished? I don’t like this!”
The exclamation of an exasperated resident during the public information session on Thursday, one that received applause from those in the room.
“I'm eighty-five and on social security and that's it. So I can't afford it, it's just out of the question,” Lake Isabella resident Trolas Vandekerkhoff told me before the information session.
Vanderkerkoff’s situation reflects many others in the Lake Isabella area. At the session, multiple residents brought up the fact that they produce very little trash, or that they already recycle and compost themselves. However, there would be no way for residents to opt out of the universal collection system.
“I don't fill a trash can a week, with everything in it. My son takes my trash to the dump once a month,” Vanderkerkoff said.
Dozens of people attended the meeting, some no longer affected by the proposed plan, but showing up to support those who are
“It's a lot of money, and there are a lot of people here on fixed incomes and what it would do to those people I think is most concerning to everyone,” Kelly Mathews a Wofford Heights resident said, adding, “One day we are going to be on a fixed income.”
Kern County Public Works stated universal collection areas are the best way to comply with SB 1383, a state law that requires the separation of organic waste in trash hauling. Earlier this year public works proposed the same plan for multiple Kern River Valley communities, but after broad opposition, public works dropped all the proposed universal collection sites in the Kern River Valley – except one for census tract 52.05, which incorporates parts of Lake Isabella and Bodfish.
“State law says that every census tract that has more than seventy-five people per square mile has to comply with the law. Lake Isabella has 440 people per square mile, it's not like eighty. We are not passing the buck, we have a job here and this is our job, we are trying to obey state law," Joshua Champlain, Director of Kern County Public Works said at the information session.
“That's a frustrating response that I've heard around the county and from public works and what-not because the fact of the matter is the state gave them an outline of what to do. I think that there's a lot of months that they could’ve been exploring alternatives.” Ashley Fike said, a Kern County resident who is helping organize the protest against the new trash tax
According to Proposition 218, if half the property owners on the affected census tract sign a petition against the new fee, it cannot be enacted.
“We need I believe 841 signatures, currently we have about a quarter of them. We've only been doing this a few weeks so that's promising so far,” Fike said.
According to the 2021 census, 39.4 percent of those in census tract 52.05 are below the poverty line.
“It's out of the question, especially for seniors,” Vandekerkhoff said.
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