Council Going Public With Dump Debate : Landfill: The Santa Clarita City Council will host a forum on the proposed Elsmere Canyon dump. Feedback could influence the city’s stand as well as the upcoming elections.

For more than a year the Santa Clarita City Council has remained cautiously quiet about plans by the city and county of Los Angeles to open a garbage dump just outside Santa Clarita in Elsmere Canyon.

Santa Clarita cannot officially oppose or endorse the dump, council members have said, until the city reviews the environmental impact report on the project.

But in an unusual move, the council will put the issue before citizens Wednesday night at a public forum, which could influence not only Santa Clarita’s posture toward the dump, but the outcome of City Council elections three months away.

“I think the dump issue is going to be a big campaign issue,” said Marsha McLean, co-chairman of the anti-dump Elsmere Canyon Preservation Committee.

Council members acknowledge that Elsmere Canyon is a volatile issue and that taking an unpopular stand on the dump could lose them votes in the April 10 election.

“We know we’re vulnerable,” Councilman Dennis Koontz said.

Koontz is facing reelection along with Councilman Carl Boyer III and Mayor Jo Anne Darcy, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. So far, six challengers have filed to run against them.

Darcy said the aim of the forum is to give the council a sense of the community’s feelings on the proposed landfill about two miles northeast of the interchange of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

The city and county of Los Angeles reached tentative agreement on a proposal to operate a dump in Elsmere Canyon late last year, but an environmental impact report on the project is not due until this spring. The earliest a dump could begin operating at Elsmere would be 1995, officials said.

At Wednesday’s forum, the public will be asked to respond to two draft resolutions outlining Santa Clarita’s options on the dump. In a sense, the citizens are being asked whether the council should take an idealistic approach or a pragmatic one.

One resolution says flatly that Santa Clarita will fight a landfill in Elsmere Canyon or anywhere else in the city’s watershed.

The other says Santa Clarita would endorse a dump only if it is environmentally sound and if Santa Clarita receives 18 concessions from the city and county of Los Angeles.

Among other things, the resolution demands a share in the dump’s profits and the right to annex about 100 square miles of unincorporated territory surrounding Santa Clarita.

It demands that the city of Los Angeles, which owns the defunct 583-acre Saugus Rehabilitation Center inside Santa Clarita, give that property to Santa Clarita. The resolution also demands that Los Angeles agree to provide Santa Clarita with fresh water in case the dump fouls Santa Clarita’s wells.

The complete list of concessions contained in the resolution will be detailed at the forum, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Hart High School auditorium. At the request of the City Council, a local cable television company, King Video, will videotape the forum for broadcast at a future date.

All five council members privately say they oppose the Elsmere Canyon landfill. But the city’s attorneys have advised the council to delay officially endorsing or opposing the dump because it could open up the city to litigation.

“City councils have to tread cautiously,” Darcy said.

“Now is not the time to declare oneself,” Koontz added.

Koontz said the forum might give the council the chance to explain to a skeptical public why it has remained silent on the Elsmere Canyon dump proposal for so long. “I think that’s what people are getting frustrated about,” he said.

Indeed, members of the Elsmere Canyon Preservation Committee have said the council’s silence has done the city more harm than good. By remaining neutral, “they are stacking the decks against us,” McLean said.

Darcy said many citizens mistakenly believe the council has already agreed to let the dump proceed in exchange for land and money. “I think there have been a lot of rumors floating around,” she said.

City Manager George Caravalho said the forum is just one step toward developing the city’s position on Elsmere Canyon. It could take weeks or months before the council is ready to adopt either of the resolutions. The council also could revise the resolutions or continue its current course.

The Elsmere Canyon Preservation Committee has greeted the public forum with skepticism. Jill Klajic, a committee member and a council candidate, likened the forum to “putting up a smoke screen.”

She noted how the committee collected 1,600 signatures on petitions asking the council to fight the Elsmere Canyon dump. “They know how the community feels,” she said.