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Truckee Town Council approves waste regulations, town manager raise

Truckee Town Council took action on a trio of items during its Tuesday session.

It updated language in solid waste regulations on organic waste recycling and food recovery, gave Town Manager Jennifer Callaway a 6% increase in base pay, and declined expansion of Truckee’s health care to council members.

Senate Bill 1282 requires jurisdictions to adopt a mandatory organic waste recycling ordinance by Jan. 1. Following unanimous approval, an urgency ordinance was passed to amend the town’s solid waste requirements in its municipal code. It also tweaked standards to incorporate organic waste recycling and edible food recovery requirements.



Beginning Jan. 1, large generators of edible food, which include four grocery stores and a wholesale food vendor, will be required to donate all edible food that didn’t sell to recovery organizations. Feed Truckee — an edible food recovery program developed with Truckee Sourdough, Sierra Community House, and Keep Truckee Green — has recovered 13,844 pounds of bread in anticipation of these requirements from Truckee Sourdough, according to a staff report.

“It’s not simply cutting and pasting what (California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery) gave us,” said Town Attorney Andy Morris. “This required hundreds of small, highly detailed, searchable edits to splice what we got from the state into our existing ordinance.”



Additionally, council unanimously approved of a performance-based pay increase for the town manager, bumping Calloway’s pay by 6%, for a total of $186,393.22, retroactively effective to Oct. 26.

Lastly, Town Council shot down a proposal that would have expanded access to Truckee’s health care program to council members. Three members of council were opposed to the motion. Truckee doesn’t currently provide health care access to elected officials.

“My bigger concern is getting council members who stay on the council because of the health care,” said Council member Jan Zabriskie. “I think someone running is going to be running for any number of reasons, but pretty soon they’d learn to love that health care and they’re going to stay on. That’s my bigger concern. It’s a perverse attraction for someone who loses their idealism or devotion to the job.”

Justin Scacco is a staff writer with the Sierra Sun. He can be reached at jscacco@sierrasun.com


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