text: Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle
  
  A garbage trucks with Recology, San Francisco trash collection service, prepares to dump a load of trash at the Transfer station, nick named "The Pit", on Friday Sep. 11, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. Recology is now talking about changing there landfill location to Yuba County - located about 40 miles north of Sacramento.
  
  A garbage trucks with Recology, San Francisco trash collection service, prepares to dump a load of trash at the Transfer station, nick named "The Pit", on Friday Sep. 11, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. Recology
  
  Bulldozers crush garbage before itês loaded onto large trucks that take the material to landfills. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award a new landfill contract to Recology, the garbage company that picks of the city's rubbish, recyclables and compostable Wednesday July 20, 2011.
  
  Bulldozers crush garbage before itês loaded onto large trucks that take the material to landfills. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award
  
  Marcus Tiger, center, Alfredo Guzman, right, and Maurice Lige, left, assemble compost bins and get them ready for delivery at the transfer station in San Francisco, Calif., Monday, November 21, 2011. Recology is about to hit one million tons of compost since they began in 1996.
  
  Marcus Tiger, center, Alfredo Guzman, right, and Maurice Lige, left, assemble compost bins and get them ready for delivery at the transfer station in San Francisco, Calif., Monday, November 21, 2011. Recology
  
  Sweeper Joaquin Rivera moves trash onto the dump floor at the Recology Transfer Station 501, Tuesday July 26, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are expected to approve a controversial contract to send tons of San Francisco trash by way of train to Yuba City.
  
  Sweeper Joaquin Rivera moves trash onto the dump floor at the Recology Transfer Station 501, Tuesday July 26, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are expected to approve a
  
  Robert Reed, of the Recology Waste Zero, finds phonebooks in the piles of recycle, Monday January 31, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The recycling plant processes 750 tons of glass and paper combined a day. It's unknown how much of that are yellow pages and phonebooks, but it is thought of as an environmental problem.
  
  Robert Reed, of the Recology Waste Zero, finds phonebooks in the piles of recycle, Monday January 31, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. The recycling plant processes 750 tons of glass and paper combined a day.
  
  Seagulls pick their way through the transfer station at Recology. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award a new landfill contract to Recology, the garbage company that picks of the city's rubbish, recyclables and compostable Wednesday July 20, 2011.
  
  Seagulls pick their way through the transfer station at Recology. Recology's transfer station is one of the busiest places for the company. San Francisco is preparing to award a new landfill contract to
  
  Movers and shakers oppose ending trash monopoly
  
  San Francisco's Democratic, Republican and Green parties are rarely on the same side of a political tussle. The Chamber of Commerce doesn't play well with the San Francisco Labor Council and the San Francisco Tenants Union is almost never an ally of the city's Building Owners and Managers Association.
  
  But these groups and almost every other maker and shaker in the city oppose Proposition A on the June 5 ballot, a measure that could end Recology's 80-year monopoly on garbage collection in San Francisco by forcing the first competitive bid on that contract since the Depression era.
  
  "This is so clearly a bad measure that every group in the city has come out against it," said Steve Falk, president and CEO of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
  
  But while Falk and others see that overwhelming opposition as a vote of confidence in Recology, backers of the measure say it's just another example of the political and economic clout the waste disposal company has developed over its decades of working with city leaders.
  
  "Luke Skywalker had an easier time blowing up the Death Star than we have going against the garbage company," said Tony Kelly, a Potrero Hill activist who joined former judge and city Supervisor Quentin Kopp to put the initiative on the ballot. "As well connected as Recology is, it's not difficult to call in all the relationships they've collected over the years."
  
  Proposition A would end a system voters approved in 1932 that gave Recology and its predecessors, Norcal Waste Systems, Sunset Scavengers and Golden Gate Disposal, a monopoly on trash collection.
  
  The city would be required to split the garbage contract into five separate pieces, covering residential and commercial trash collection, recovering and processing of recyclables, transportation to disposal sites outside the city and disposal of any remaining wastes.
  
  The same company wouldn't be allowed to hold all the contracts. The Board of Supervisors would set all garbage rates and the city would be required to own the garbage-processing and transfer stations.
  
  It's the specter of increasing city involvement in the garbage business that worries many of the measure's opponents.
  
  "Our members don't want to see the politicization of the rate setting," said Ken Cleaveland, a vice president of the building owners association, which represents commercial property owners across the city.
  
  For others, it's a matter of "If it's not broke, don't fix it." Recology's crews collect the garbage regularly and have helped put San Francisco on the forefront of the growing environmental effort to keep trash out of landfills by an increasing emphasis on recycling and composting.
  
  "This is a measure in search of a problem," said Falk. "Our rates are right in the middle of the pack for Bay Area communities and the company has a close working relationship with the city." But Proposition A doesn't threaten service, said Kelly. Recology could still bid for the contracts and the city could insist on maintaining the current standards.
  
  What the measure would ensure is that the city gets the best deal possible for its valuable garbage contracts, which Kelly and Kopp have suggested could bring as much as $50 million in franchise fees for the city, a figure opponents dispute.
  
  "This isn't public power," Kelly said. "All we want to do is handle trash collection the way the city handles every other franchise."
  
  But those arguments haven't found an audience. Proposition A supporters have raised little money and Kelly glumly said, "There's no campaign at all."
  
  It's a different story on the other side. A $100,000 contribution from Recology has helped put "Don't Mess with Success" billboards across the city and paid for a professional campaign. Teams of supporters, including workers from the employee-owned company, have knocked on doors, handed out literature and made their pitches to the Democratic clubs and other neighborhood organizations that are at the heart of the city's grassroots politics.
  
  The opposition's list of supporters includes seven of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, all four of the city's state legislators, 15 Democratic clubs and organizations and a variety of the city's ethnic, environmental, labor and good government groups.
  
  Having a heavily unionized company with a good reputation and deep roots in the city was a huge plus going into the campaign, but it's not enough to win, said Gale Kaufman, the Sacramento political consultant running the campaign.
  
  "It doesn't matter what the politics are," she said. "If people thought there was a problem, there would be money on the other side."
  
  John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com
summary: [...] these groups and almost every other maker and shaker in the city oppose Proposition A on the June 5 ballot, a measure that could end Recology's 80-year monopoly on garbage collection in San Francisco by forcing the first competitive bid on that contract since the Depression era.  [...] while Falk and others see that overwhelming opposition as a vote of confidence in Recology, backers of the measure say it's just another example of the political and economic clout the waste disposal company has developed over its decades of working with city leaders.  Proposition A would end a system voters approved in 1932 that gave Recology and its predecessors, Norcal Waste Systems, Sunset Scavengers and Golden Gate Disposal, a monopoly on trash collection.  The city would be required to split the garbage contract into five separate pieces, covering residential and commercial trash collection, recovering and processing of recyclables, transportation to disposal sites outside the city and disposal of any remaining wastes.  Teams of supporters, including workers from the employee-owned company, have knocked on doors, handed out literature and made their pitches to the Democratic clubs and other neighborhood organizations that are at the heart of the city's grassroots politics.  The opposition's list of supporters includes seven of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, all four of the city's state legislators, 15 Democratic clubs and organizations and a variety of the city's ethnic, environmental, labor and good government groups.