OJAI : Chamber Urged to Exclude Waste Firm

The Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce is facing mounting opposition from residents who are concerned that it will reverse itself and allow Waste Management of North America to join, two years after rejecting it.

One group of business owners is also urging the Ojai City Council to drop its $15,000 annual rent subsidy to the chamber if it welcomes the Ventura branch of the world’s largest solid-waste management company as a member.

Jim Jevens, the firm’s project manager for its proposed Weldon Canyon landfill south of Ojai, has announced that he wants to resubmit an application to the chamber board on March 28. A former chamber board unanimously rejected the firm’s first application in November, 1988.

“I was a major opponent,” said liquor store owner Les Gardner, who is no longer a chamber member.

“The feeling was we could not condone a company that was convicted of, and under indictment for, unlawful business practices in other parts of the country.”

Jevens, who could not be reached for comment, has often said that the Ventura County operations and employees should not be blamed for the giant company’s problems elsewhere.

But Ojai bookseller William Noack, a former chamber board member, said he rewrote the chamber’s bylaws last year so it could reject Waste Management.

“If the chamber accepts them, within 10 days a group of us will file papers to start a new chamber and honor all the current memberships,” Noack said Tuesday.

Noack’s group, calling itself Ojai’s MAD (Mobilization Against the Dump), is asking the city to consider dropping its subsidy and is running advertisements and writing letters urging other business owners to “have the guts to stand up and just say ‘no’ to Waste Management,” he said.

Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, which had applauded the chamber’s original decision, is also urging the new board to stand by it and to accept the environmental group as a member. “We believe . . . Waste Management does not conform to the bylaws or mission statement,” group president Stan Greene said in a recent letter to the chamber.

Chamber Executive Director Margaret Westrom said the board members have instructed her not to comment on the issue.

“All I can say is that we’re not going to make any decisions until we get an application,” Westrom said.