Paso City Council supports SLO County's rejoining waste authority 

SLO County's move to rejoin the Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA) received a unanimous vote of support from the Paso Robles City Council on Dec. 19.

"I'm extremely happy that the county wants to return," said Mayor John Hamon, who serves as the city's representative on the IWMA board.

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• Photo Courtesy Of The Integrated Waste Management Authority 
• MOVING FORWARD The Integrated Waste Management Authority helps cities, towns, and unincorporated areas of SLO County with waste pickup, including recycling. 

SLO County initially withdrew from the IWMA in November 2021. The then conservative majority on the SLO County Board of Supervisors took issue with what it saw as a lack of oversight, including over the IWMA's former Director Bill Worrell and former IWMA board Secretary Carolyn Grace Goodrich, and what former 4th District Supervisor Lynn Compton said was the county's lack of power over IWMA decisions.

After the SLO County District Attorney's Office charged Goodrich with embezzlement and destruction of public records, the board voted 3-2 in August 2021 to remove itself from the IWMA.

"I pleaded with the county to stay in the IWMA," Hamon said during the Dec. 19 meeting. "Having done what they did [two years ago] just increased their work immensely."

The 2021 vote led the county to spend at least $2 million to create its own solid and hazardous waste management agency. It also meant that waste pickup rates increased for remaining IWMA customers and residents in unincorporated areas of the county alike.

Just two years later, on Oct. 31, 2023, the new iteration of the county Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 to reverse that decision and rejoin the IWMA. But the current board's decision first needs approval from the IWMA's existing members—the county's seven cities and some of its community services districts.

"The IWMA is set up to help meet state mandates on waste management," Paso Robles' Solid Waste and Recycling Manager Adam Spaulding told the City Council. "It will be financially beneficial to the city because it will spread out how much each city in the county is spending to more groups."

Current IWMA Executive Director Peter Cron told New Times that the county's official join day is set for Feb. 1, "assuming everyone continues to support it as they have thus far."

Paso joined Pismo Beach and Atascadero alongside the Cayucos, Cambria, San Miguel, and San Simeon community services districts in supporting the change. According to Cron, Arroyo Grande, San Luis Obispo city, and Morro Bay should vote on whether to approve the change in early January.

"We need to have strength in numbers to meet state waste mandates, and the more people you have working together the easier that's going to be," Hamon said at the meeting. "The more people you have figuratively working to pull the rope means less spending overall since it's spread out." Δ