OJAI : City to Pay for Landfill Analysis
The Ojai City Council voted 4 to 0 Tuesday to pay financial advisers up to $22,500 to analyze the county’s proposed contract with a private corporation that wants to own and operate a landfill in Weldon Canyon. Councilman Robert McKinney was absent.
The council, whose top priority is to persuade the county to put the landfill elsewhere, voted unanimously to hire Hilton, Farnkopf and Hobson to conduct the analysis.
“We don’t have any staff here that can do that, but it’s something that’s very important to us,” City Manager Andy Belknap said.
Waste Management Inc. of Oak Brook, Ill., the nation’s largest waste company, owns the long-term lease for the Weldon Canyon site and has proposed to operate the new dump.
The Ojai study will focus on whether public ownership, which city officials believe would allow a more competitive selection of the dump operator, would be more financially advantageous for Ventura County residents.
Ojai council members and many of their constituents oppose the proposed 110-acre, $30-million Weldon Canyon landfill because they believe it will worsen an already bad air quality problem.
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