An open letter to the Hon. City Councilman Kevin Faulconer, the Environmental Services Department of San Diego and the Mission Beach Town Council: My name is Cynthia Francisco and I am a long-time resident of Mission Beach.  I am hoping to bring attention and awareness to Councilman Faulconer and to the city’s Environmental Services Department about various issues concerning reduced summer trash collection in Mission Beach. To get right down to the point about the trash-collection schedule set for this summer, reduced scheduling of trash collection is becoming an apparent problem for both the regular trash and the recycling pick-up schedules. As you are aware, we have been very blessed to have had in the past two regular trash pickups in Mission Beach to solve the overflow trash issues created in the summer because of transient vacationers.  This was created out of need for the copious amounts of trash generated by the summer influx of tourists, which is one of our main sources of income for our city in the summer.  Nothing has changed in the numbers of visitors in the summer as far as trash collection is concerned. As for the new pilot program … standard trash collections were cut back from the twice-weekly summer pick-ups for regular trash services due to hopes that the recycling program would take care of the extra trash generated in the summer months. As the summer is progressing, it is becoming very apparent that there are already overflow trash issues surfacing with regular trash overflowing out of the black trashcans and spilling out on the alleyways. This is a result of the black trash cans filling up quickly because of the rentals now going from perhaps four people to eight to 12 people using one three-bedroom unit, and then multiply this by three (as there are usually three units per one building). It is becoming obvious that Mission Beach is going to need that extra trash pickup again this summer in order to avoid unsightly alleyways, maintain our community’s reputation and address sanitation issues. There are two primary issues at hand. First, during the off-season from October to May, we have about a 70 percent vacancy rate in Mission Beach for vacation rentals, but in the summer peak season, that gap closes to nearly total occupancy in the beach areas — and more with the large groups occupying the larger rentals. Second, we cannot afford to discourage this tourism with unsightly, odiferous, uncollected trash lying in the alleyways, thereby creating the appearance that our city standards of sanitation have lowered.  Not to mention there is the summer fly/maggot cycle brought about from the heat generated in the black trashcans located in the summer sun. As for the blue recycling, it has really been a success. In fact, it has been such a success that in less than one week they are full, but are only collected twice monthly.  This is coupled with the fact that not all buildings have a blue trash can due to space storage issues for them, and the ones that are around are filling very quickly.  Once full, the visitors and residents alike are using the black cans to put their recycling waste in, which somewhat defeats the purpose. I do understand that money is an issue for trash pickup and the budget is tight, but there is a long-term solution: change the city charter and implement a trash collection fee like most cities. I do propose we put it before a vote of the people.  But, we must let them know that we will be charging in the range of $144 to $240 per year, which is very reasonable considering that Environmental Services Department is paying in the ballpark of $35 million yearly for collection services. But, for the short term, we will need to find an emergency fund to allocate for an extra trash collection for this summer in the Mission Beach area. I look forward to hearing back from you about this issue.