Local News in Brief : Grand Jury Urges Audit

The Los Angeles County Grand Jury has recommended that the Irwindale Community Redevelopment Agency audit the records of a private firm that earned $18 million from city-issued bonds for a huge trash-to-energy plant that was never built.

Auditors should examine about $20 million in expenses claimed by Pasadena-based Pacific Waste Management Corp. through the four-year life of the controversial project, which was killed last October, the grand jury said.

Grand jury auditors, whose investigation ended in January, concluded that Pacific Waste Management then had an undetermined amount of cash raised through the 1984 bond sales and other assets purchased with bond earnings. The assets are “a windfall” that may rightfully belong to the city Redevelopment Agency, auditors said.

Pacific Waste President Mark White said, however, that his firm has lost at least $1.5 million on the failed Irwindale project. Pacific Waste would welcome another audit, he said, even though the project has been audited repeatedly since 1984. An Irwindale spokesman said the city had not decided whether to order a new inquiry.