Funds Earmarked for Retrieving Landfill Litter : Bradley Budget Boosts Anti-Gang Programs, Buses

Among programs affecting the San Fernando Valley proposed by Mayor Tom Bradley in the new Los Angeles city budget is one to hire workers to pick up trash that blows into residential neighborhoods from the Lopez Canyon Landfill.

The $3.2-billion spending plan includes funds to improve bus service on two heavily used Southern California Rapid Transit District lines in the Valley and to expand a Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy bus program to bring poor people from such areas as Pacoima to the beaches and mountains.

Funds would also be provided to step up an anti-gang program in the Valley and in other parts of the city that “are experiencing a wave of gang-related crime,” Bradley said.

The mayor boosted from $1.2 million to $1.9 million the proposed city contribution to the city-county Youth Gang Services program, which sends teams of counselors into gang areas.

The full extent of the new budget’s benefits to the Valley will not be known until Bradley formally sends details of the proposed spending package to the City Council next week.

But the mayor offered a glimpse into a few highlights, including the hiring of 12 workers to clean up litter around the Lopez Canyon Landfill in Lake View Terrace.

“Windblown papers around the landfill site and adjacent private property have been a problem resulting in citations from the Air Quality Management District,” Bradley said in his budget message to the council.

“It is imperative that we maintain our only operating landfill in a neat and orderly manner to protect the environment and to be a good neighbor to the surrounding community.”

The landfill’s neighbors are fighting a Bradley-supported proposal to keep the dump open 13 years beyond a projected 1992 closing date and to more than double its capacity. The mayor’s budget, as expected, includes $4.4 million to begin work on lopping off a ridge top and removing 6 million cubic yards of dirt to provide the additional landfill space.

When the budget comes before the council, it will give Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who opposes expansion of the landfill, the first of several opportunities to try to kill the project. The landfill is in Bernardi’s district.

Mike Miller, assistant sanitation director, said the 12 workers will “just pick up paper all day long.” He said the city is required by health laws to control litter.

“One of the big problems we have are these big plastic garbage bags. When you get high winds, those babies take off like kites. They get up in the air and travel for miles.”

The budget also includes funds to add six buses to Line 420, which runs between downtown Los Angeles and Van Nuys, and one bus to Line 152, which runs between the East and West Valley.

The money not only would reduce crowding on the lines but increase the frequency of service, said Art Leahy, RTD’s acting manager of operations. Funds would come from a half-cent sales tax increase approved by Los Angeles County voters in 1980 for transportation programs.

Funds are also provided in the proposed budget for a new city water reclamation office to study expanded uses of reclaimed water from the Tillman sewage treatment plant in Van Nuys.

BUDGET OVERVIEW: Part II, Page 1.