A Fine Mess They Were In

After days of bureaucratic wrangling, several blocks within the unincorporated area of Harbor Gateway are finally getting cleaned up. Last Saturday, residents of the working-class neighborhood of single-family homes cleaned out their garages and yards for what was supposed to be a one-day special pickup of items too large for regular refuse collection.

But the pickup, announced in flyers by the office of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, never included the 1100 block of West Fiat Street and several surrounding streets because they are in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, not the city of Los Angeles.

“It’s disgusting,” resident Kim Moritz said. “I look out my front door and feel like I live in a dump.” Moritz was one of several residents to complain about the trash. But, she and others say, they were given the runaround. County officials said the area was within their jurisdiction but that they wouldn’t pick up the trash because their office didn’t announce the one-day pickup.

Flores’ office said they announced the pickup but that it was never meant to include the county area. Nonetheless, after numerous complaints from residents, Flores’ office arranged to have city sanitation crews haul away the trash. In the meantime, the residents feel they have been dumped on by the bureaucracy.

“All I got was the runaround,” Dore Brandt said of her initial efforts to have the trash hauled away. “I made all these calls and got nowhere. And these are the people who are supposed to take care of these things. Now I know why I don’t vote.”