San Marcos

North County Resource Recovery Associates received some legal support Wednesday from the county Board of Supervisors in the company’s effort to build a trash-burning power plant in San Marcos. At issue is a special election scheduled for April 30, when San Marcos voters will consider an initiative ordinance that, if approved, would effectively prohibit construction of the controversial, $120-million plant. NCRRA says the ordinance, proposed by Citizens for Healthy Air in San Marcos, is legally flawed because voters don’t have the right to reverse the City Council’s approval of the project last month. County supervisors, meeting in executive session Wednesday, instructed County Counsel Lloyd Harmon to “intervene” on behalf of NCRRA’s legal action. The board already had given permission for its landfill to be used as the site of the trash-fired power plant, and the county’s waste management plan calls for such a plant in North County. Deputy County Counsel Bill Smith, saying there were “a ton of things” legally wrong with the initiative measure, said the county would essentially become a co-plaintiff in NCRRA’s lawsuit challenging the initiative.