Firm Seeking to Expand Landfill Gave $106,000 to City, County Campaigns

A major waste disposal firm that wants to expand a controversial San Fernando Valley landfill to allow for another 50 years of dumping has contributed more than $100,000 since 1985 to campaign committees of the Los Angeles County supervisors, City Council and mayor, campaign records show.

Browning-Ferris Industries has contributed $106,212, and more than a dozen lobbyists, law firms and consultants that do work for BFI and other clients have contributed another $193,610 to the elected officials during the same five-year period, according to a Times review of public records.

BFI is seeking to expand its Sunshine Canyon landfill above Granada Hills, which could generate billions of dollars in revenues for the company over the next half century. The expansion has been opposed by neighborhood groups because it would destroy thousands of trees and would extend the life of a dump they say has created dust and blowing trash.

The company needs city and county approval for the expansion because the landfill straddles the city-county boundary. Some elected officials have said they support the expansion because of dwindling space in existing landfills.

BFI contributed a total of $63,400 to the five county supervisors. Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district encompasses the landfill, is the leading recipient of BFI contributions. He received $21,250, records show.

Supervisor Pete Schabarum, whose district includes BFI’s other big Los Angeles County dump, the Azusa Western Landfill, was the second leading beneficiary, receiving $15,650 in BFI donations, according to records. Supervisor Deane Dana received $12,500.

Spokesmen for Antonovich and Schabarum say they are not influenced by campaign donations.

Contributors “are buying his program and philosophy of government, he is not buying theirs,” an Antonovich aide said.

Schabarum, whose district gets the bulk of the county’s trash, has sided with water utility officials against expansion of the Azusa dump, while supporting landfill expansions in other areas, including Sunshine Canyon.

The expansion on the county side of the landfill is to be considered today by the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, after which it will be taken up by the Board of Supervisors.

Records show that BFI has spread $42,812 in donations among 15 current and former council members and Mayor Tom Bradley, who received $6,262.

City Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents Granada Hills and has taken a hard line against dump expansion, received no money from BFI.

At a minimum, critics say, donations give well-heeled contributors a political advantage over ordinary citizens.

“They’ve been throwing a lot of money around,” said Mary Edwards of the North Valley Coalition, a homeowner group that has fought expansion of the dump.

“Citizens have to ask why is this being done,” said Tony Cosby-Rossmann, attorney for the North Valley Coalition.

Contributors and officeholders say the impact is minimal because any single contributor accounts for a tiny percentage of campaign receipts.

“There are only so many spots on an elected official’s calendar,” and campaign giving merely assures access to decision-makers, said Mark Ryavec of Delphi Associates, a BFI consultant.

BFI won two key political victories in 1989, a year in which the company and its consultants stepped up their giving.

Last summer, the City Council granted BFI relief from a decision by zoning officials that would have virtually closed the dump at the end of 1989 because of zoning violations. The council instead gave BFI the right to continue using the disposal area through June, 1990.

The action followed a BFI phone bank and direct mail campaign in support of the dump.

In another BFI victory, the supervisors and council late last year in effect endorsed Sunshine expansion through language inserted in a “memorandum of cooperation” on development of a city-county landfill at Elsmere Canyon.

In the memorandum, officials agreed to work toward permitting the Sunshine dump to expand on both sides of the city-county line.

City and county officials said in interviews that they were motivated by concern about a “trash crisis.”

“It has nothing to do with running interference for BFI,” said Dennis Morefield, an aide to Dana. “It has strictly to do with the . . . need for adequate landfill capacity.”

The 230-acre Sunshine landfill takes about 6,000 tons of trash per day, or nearly one-seventh of the solid waste in Los Angeles County. Space is expected to be exhausted by September, 1991. If the expansions are approved, BFI will be able to fill additional canyon areas with another 215 million tons of trash.

Dump fees are almost certain to rise, but even if BFI continued to charge its current disposal rates of between $24 and $31 per ton, the 215 million tons translates into more than $5 billion in revenues over the life of the dump. BFI has declined to provide a revenue estimate.

Of the $299,822 donated by BFI and its lawyers and consultants, $142,705 went to the supervisors and $157,117 to the council and mayor.

The lawyers and law firms gave $135,002 to city and county officials from 1985 to 1989, with half of that from Latham & Watkins.

Community relations and land use consultants Ira Handelman and Rob Katherman and their company gave $21,391.

Maureen Kindel, former president of the city Board of Public Works and a key Bradley fund-raiser, has worked as a BFI lobbyist. She and others at her firm, Rose & Kindel, contributed $14,125.

Some other BFI consultants began stepped up their giving last year.

For example, BFI’s geotechnical consultant, Purcell, Rhoades & Associates of Hayward, had not contributed before last year to Los Angeles officeholders, records show. In 1989, Purcell, Rhoades donated $1,000 each to Antonovich and Dana and $500 each to five council members--the maximums allowed.

In 1989, BFI consultants organized private campaign breakfasts and dinners where BFI team members made donations to four council members. Michael Woo received $3,250, Zev Yaroslavsky $4,000, Joan Milke Flores $4,000 and Richard Alatorre $5,000.

Contacted by The Times, Woo, Yaroslavsky and aides to Flores and Alatorre said they decide issues on their merits.

Woo said he will consider the impact of dump expansion on neighbors as well as the city’s need for dumping space.

Yaroslavsky said, “My views have been for neighborhood and community protection, not for the expansion of that dump, and that’s where I stand, whether or not they host a breakfast for me.”

Times researchers Cecilia Rasmussen and Laine Courtney contributed to this story.