If you are a Recology customer in San Francisco, you will soon see a considerable refund check.
The garbage collection company agreed on Thursday to return $ 94.5 million in fees and interest charged, city attorney Dennis Herrera announced. In addition, Recology is also expected to reduce residential and commercial tariffs as of April 1, which will save customers $ 6.1 million from April to June. The deal comes in the wake of an investigation by Herrera’s office, which claims that Recology has inflated its fees for years.
The city attorney said most families will receive about $ 190 back.
The issues go back to the mandate of the disgraced ex-Public Works chief Mohammed Nuru, who was arrested in January 2020 on a series of charges of corruption and bribery, involving various agencies and municipal partners.
Federal prosecutors claimed that Nuru took bribes from Recology in exchange for allowing them to keep their rates inflated. Four months ago, former Recology executive Paul Giusti was also arrested for his alleged role in the scandal; prosecutors say Giusti paid more than $ 1 million in bribes to Nuru, whose role in the city included the right to approve garbage collection fees.
“With this legal action, we are making San Francisco taxpayers whole and sending a clear message that approaching regulators will not be tolerated,” said Herrera in a statement. “Mohammed Nuru may have had his challenges to keep the streets clean, but he clearly excelled in clientelism, water tank and indifferent supervision. While taxpayers were affecting their portfolios, Nuru was asking for money for luxurious company parties he was supposed to be regulating. It’s outrageous. “
In October, a Local Mission investigation found that San Francisco customers’ garbage rates skyrocketed at the same time that Recology began donating to a nonprofit organization controlled by Nuru.
Recology has changed its name over the decades, but since the 1930s the company has had a San Francisco garbage collection monopoly.
“The ramifications of our work with the city attorney in this investigation are not abstract – there are real financial consequences for the Franciscans,” said city controller Ben Rosenfield in a statement. “It is only fair that our residents are paid for the unjustified fees that they have been charged with. “
For more information on the settlement, see the statement from the Public Prosecutor’s Office here.