Garbage pick-up rates have been raised for downtown merchants.

The increase is more than double and store owners say that's too much, but the city says the rates should've been raised a long time ago:

"I can understand, cause the city is not doing well economically either."

City Manager Carlos Villarreal says everybody is struggling financially, but the services to the downtown merchants have been subsidized for years and the increase in garbage pick up fees was a long time coming:

"Yes we don't want to be unfair to the downtown merchants but we don't want to be unfair with the rest of the public."

Merchants say downtown is not what it used to be. They are not generating any money and many stores are closing, making it tougher to pay their bills:

"What was equally troubling and very upsetting to us is the way it was done. We don’t know why council chose to get this in and out so quickly."

So quickly that others merchants say the fee was increased without them even knowing:

"No dijeron nada, no mas mandaron el cobro en el bill no se aviso nada."

Jose Bueno owns Joey's Novelty and says there was no notice until they got the bill in the mail. He was paying $95 a month for garbage pick up and now the fee is up to $220 a month:

"Yo voy de acuerdo con un aumento de 20 a 30 dolares pero no tanto asi."

An increase of $20 to $30 he can handle he says but not more than double:

"Not only our sales are down but our margins which people tend to forget they are grossly down we are not making the margins that we used to."

Les Norton has three stores downtown; one saw fees increase from $65 to $165.

He says with costs like that, he will have to make extreme measures:

"I would have to continue cutting hours and looking for other ways to compensate."

The city manager says it takes $335,000 annually to provide the service downtown.

Meanwhile, the city and merchants met on Tuesday and the city agreed to look at how many times-a-day garbage is collected.