Lawndale Residents Upset at Change in Trash Contract

Angry residents clamored for a recall vote against three council members Thursday after the Lawndale City Council decided to replace the city’s current trash hauler, Browning-Ferris Industries, with Western Waste Industries.

The council voted 3 to 2, with Mayor Harold E. Hofmann and Councilman Larry Rudolph dissenting, to approve a five-year franchise agreement with Carson-based Western Waste. The contract takes effect in October.

The decision was unpopular in the packed council chambers, with many in the audience saying they were satisfied with their existing trash service and shouting for a recall of council members Carol Norman, Norm Lagerquist and William Johnson, who voted to end BFI’s eight-year tenure in Lawndale.

The decision comes as campaigning heats up before the April 14 City Council elections, in which Hofmann and Johnson are running for mayor and Norman and Lagerquist are seeking reelection.

Rudolph, who said he would call for a grand jury investigation into the awarding of the contract, accused Norman, Lagerquist and Johnson of rigging the process in favor of Western Waste.

“This was a done deal,” Rudolph said.

Hofmann, Rudolph’s ally on the council, also assailed the action. “Nothing has rubbed me the wrong way more than this,” he said.

Norman insisted that the selection of Western Waste was aboveboard and in the interest of the city.

“It was not rigged,” she said in a telephone interview Friday. “I did not know until that evening how the vote was going to go.” Norman said she sided with Western Waste because it offers a superior recycling program and is locally based, while BFI is headquartered in Houston.

“I want to keep the money in Los Angeles County,” Norman said.

During a 90-minute public hearing, about 20 residents urged the council to reopen the negotiations for the franchise and to change the format to a competitive, sealed-bid process. The city had asked only for proposals from the trash haulers and discussed revisions at the March 5 meeting.

Some complained that Western Waste was unfairly allowed to revise its proposal, thereby giving it an unfair advantage over its competitors, BFI and Waste Management Inc.

Mark Bozajian, executive vice president of Western Waste, said his firm had done nothing wrong in seeking the city’s business.

At the March 5 meeting, Western Waste undercut BFI’s proposed monthly rate of $12.50 per household by agreeing to credit customers 30 cents per month through revenues from recycled materials. That brought Western Waste’s offer down from $12.75 to $12.45 per month.

Hofmann said that revision violated a city contract provision that deals with revenue from recycling. But Johnson said no contract provisions were violated, and that the savings came about during legitimate negotiations over price.

At the meeting Thursday, BFI failed in an attempt to salvage the contract. Chip Scholz, BFI’s community affairs director, told the council that his company would lower its bid to a monthly rate of $12.40 per household, a nickel less than Western Waste.

However, a majority of the council, who maintain Western Waste’s proposal was superior, deflected that bid by approving Western Waste’s contract with an amended monthly rate of $12.40 per household, matching BFI’s last-ditch offer.

“We are highly dissatisfied with the unfairness of the situation,” Scholz said. “We feel the process has been unfair from the start.”