Lawndale Officials Warned About Asbestos, Ex-Colleague Says at Trial

The trial of former Lawndale City Manager James Arnold and Public Works Director James Sanders, who are charged with illegally disposing of hazardous materials in a 1989 city demolition project, opened this week with testimony from a former Lawndale official who said she had warned them about the possible presence of asbestos.

Paula Cone, former assistant city manager, testified Wednesday that she warned both men that asbestos might be present in one of three city-owned homes at least a month before Sanders mounted a bulldozer in June, 1989, to raze them.

Cone, whose husband’s family lived in one of the homes on 167th Street before the city bought it in 1968 and turned it into a storage building, said she told Sanders on May 12, 1989, that her brother-in-law believed the home had asbestos siding that “and you should check it out.”

About a week later, she said, Sanders told her he had looked at the building but didn’t find anything.

In his opening argument Tuesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony Patchett told the jury that Sanders ignored the warnings and pressed ahead to demolish the homes without taking proper precautions. When asbestos tiles were later found, he continued to tear down the buildings, creating “an intense dust cloud” that may have exposed neighboring residents to a hazardous material whose “danger is something we might not know for 15 to 40 years,” Patchett said.

Once commonly used as insulation, asbestos is now known to be a hazardous material that can cause lung ailments, including cancer.

“I believe the evidence will show that Mr. Sanders took the bull by the horns,” Patchett said. “I believe the evidence will show that he’s a no-nonsense-type man that wants to get things done. However, the evidence in this case will show that he went a little too far.”

Although Arnold was not involved in the demolition project, he was also warned about the possible presence of asbestos, Patchett said. As Sanders’ supervisor, Arnold knew “or reasonably should have known” about Sanders’ actions, Patchett said.

But Brendan O’Neill, Sanders’ defense attorney, painted a very different picture for the jury. “What this case is going to be all about,” he said, “is two city employees doing their job who got caught up in something . . . that was really political.”

O’Neill, who has described Sanders and Arnold as scapegoats in pre-election posturing by Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, told the jury that the city had been under pressure to tear down the homes, all of which had been converted into storage buildings. “It was an eyesore. There were rats. . . . It could have been a danger to children,” he said.

Several inspections failed to turn up any obvious sign that the building contained asbestos, O’Neill said. When Sanders did find asbestos tiles, O’Neill said, he took reasonable steps to protect his employees and to properly dispose of the materials in a licensed dump.

O’Neill also said the asbestos tiles were different from the kind of asbestos padding that was once a common insulation around pipes and is now regarded as highly hazardous. O’Neill contended that the material Sanders found was “not harmful stuff” and was “not regulated at that time.”

Sanders and Arnold, who are both expected to testify on their own behalf, each were originally charged with 17 misdemeanors: five counts of illegally disposing of hazardous waste and 12 counts of failing to comply with state and federal regulations regarding the handling of asbestos. Last week, South Bay Municipal Court Judge Deanna Smith Myers dropped the 12 charges involving the men’s alleged failure to comply with state and federal regulations.

If convicted on the remaining five counts, however, Arnold and Sanders could be ordered to serve as much as a year in county jail and pay a $100,000 fine.

Testimony from several witnesses in the first two days portrayed Sanders as an arrogant man given to bursts of anger:

* June Mouzas, who lives next to the demolition site, and her brother, Anthony Reed, both said Sanders ignored their complaints about the clouds of dust that covered the inside of their homes and cars while the buildings were being torn down.

* Mark Kirtland, a demolition contractor who had been hired to tear down the buildings, said Sanders had been rude and unprofessional during a telephone conversation with him. Kirtland said that Sanders fired him from the job because he failed to start on time but that he was delayed because the city had not yet turned off the gas and electricity in the buildings to be demolished.

* Michael Haynes, an investigator with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, testified Wednesday that when he came out to take samples of the allegedly hazardous materials, Sanders refused to give him his name, phone number or business card and said he “didn’t think the rule applied to his operation.”

Haynes also told the jury that 1989 state and federal regulations require workers handling asbestos tiles to wear full-body plastic suits and respiratory equipment.

Several more people, including an expert witness who will dispute Haynes’ testimony, are expected to take the stand before the trial ends Friday.

Richard Orosco and James Lodinsky, two Lawndale maintenance employees who wore only painters’ masks and old clothes when they helped haul away debris from the demolition site, both sued Arnold, Sanders and the city in December, alleging that their health was endangered when they were knowingly exposed to asbestos. That case is still pending.