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Though Debated, Eureka OKs Shopping Cart Recovery Fee · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Eureka is about to step up action on getting stolen shopping carts off the streets, but there's debate on whether charging businesses a fee for doing so is double punishing theft victims. Introduced earlier this month, an ordinance amendment on a new shopping cart recovery method got final approval at the Aug. 19 city council meeting. In a close vote, the amendment updates the city's system of handling abandoned carts. They're either taken to the dump or to the city's public works courtyard. And although fees can be charged, they haven't been because carts aren't being tracked. That changes with the amendment as a new system will include tagging and photographing recovered carts and uploading their locations into a GIS database. Under the new protocol, a $50 fee will be charged if carts are returned to businesses or if they're disposed of. Councilmember Mario Fernandez reiterated his concerns about impacting small businesses and asked City Attorney Robert Black if the fine can be based on business size. Black explained why that's a no go.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: The fee is a form of charge that is aimed to defray, offset or pay for a cost incurred by the city. And due to how the law has evolved really since the 90s, you're not allowed to use a fee to generate revenues above and beyond the actual cost. So what that means is you're not really in a position to single out one level of business and subsidize another level of business through differentiating on the basis of the size of the business.
• 2:04
  Speaker A: Having confirmed that the cost of dealing with carts also includes staff time, Council member Leslie Castellano said not charging a fee means the city is basically spending taxpayer money. But Council member Rene Contreras deloach said business owners have told her they have carts with wheel locks but they can be disabled. She described the fee as an anti business move.
• 2:31
  Speaker C: We have a situation where somebody who's just doing business is being victimized, right? They're being victimized by shoplifters or being victimized by people who are stealing their carts. And then we're like, we're going to charge you a fee for that. The impression from some of the people that I talk to is that it is another move and a series of moves by the city that is not friendly to business and does not understand the pressures that they're under or what's happening to them and that they are dealing with and being victimized by crime pretty continually and that that's really significantly affecting their bottom line. And I think it's a fair criticism. I know there's, you know, limited amounts of Stuff that we can, as a council, do about some of these things. Obviously, there's kind of like these broader things kind of going on, but seem like we're penalizing businesses for something that they, assuming that they've made precautions, have nothing to do with.
• 3:22
  Speaker A: But the city is under pressure, too, as reflected in this exchange between Mayor Kim Burgell and Contreras deloach.
• 3:30
  Speaker D: I think I hear what you're saying about you don't want to target business owners that are being stolen from. So do you feel like then, just to clarify this, that the general population should be paying for that out of the general fund? Our taxpayers should be paying for that?
• 3:45
  Speaker C: I think that's a really good question. I think we already do in a lot of indirect ways with the expansion of law enforcement and other things like that that we need to do because of the amount of issues that we're dealing with. And so, yeah, I guess in a lot of ways, I see this as kind of a roll in. We are literally expanding different areas of law enforcement, specifically because we have some areas of our population that are really struggling.
• 4:07
  Speaker A: Fernandez described the fee system as inequitable to the smaller businesses that are already trying to do right by this. Contreras deloach asked about what the total cost is to the city for dealing with the issue, but the information wasn't readily available. But Community Development Services Director Kristin Kenyon said recordkeeping is part of the new system, and council can be presented with reports on how many carts are being recovered, where they're being found and where they're coming from. When it came down to a vote, the amendment passed 3 to 2, with Fernandez and Contreras DeLoach voting against it. In Eureka. For KMUD news, this is Daniel Mintz.