Lancaster Man Takes Protest and Trash to City Hall

A Lancaster resident, annoyed at a change in the city’s trash collecting policy, dumped on City Hall--literally, authorities said.

Paul Malone plunked a bag of his trash on the front counter at Lancaster City Hall on Thursday, sheriff’s deputies and city officials said.

Malone, 64, was arrested after “dumping trash on public property,” cited and released, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Denham said. The charge is a low-grade misdemeanor punishable by a fine and no more then six months in jail, Sgt. Steve Nelson said.

Malone, who could not be reached for comment, had angrily complained to several city officials in the past about the new regulations, which require every household to pay a private contractor for waste-hauling services, city spokeswoman Nancy Walker said.

“I encountered him earlier this week and tried to explain the program to him. . . . He wasn’t interested in what I had to say,” Walker said.

The trash ordinance--mandated by a state waste-reduction law--divided the city’s residential trash-hauling business between two private companies, forcing many residents to pay more and giving them no other choice, Walker said. About 6,500 households--including Malone’s--were forced to change waste haulers.

The ordinance was also designed to cut down “desert dumping” of trash, a major problem in the Antelope Valley, where cities are surrounded by the Mojave Desert.

City officials have received several hundred complaints and questions about the changes, which went into effect July 1, Walker said, but most people drop their complaints once the situation is explained.

“This is the only citizen we have who continually keeps coming back,” Walker said. “He doesn’t seem to be grasping the situation.”