Cities Take Big Waste Management Step : Environment: Municipal and county officials agree to draft legislation creating a regional agency to oversee landfills and trash disposal.

Ventura County’s cities took a major step Thursday toward establishing an agency to manage trash throughout the county in a move aimed at bringing an end to two decades of political infighting over waste management.

Officials from all 10 cities and the county government agreed to draft state legislation that would establish the county Waste Management Authority and give it power to oversee the region’s varied collection of landfills and trash-disposal plans, present and future.

“I’m jazzed,” Kay Martin, director of the county’s Solid Waste Management Department, said after the five-hour workshop of City Council members, city and county officials, and officials of the Ventura Regional Sanitation District.

“The will of the cities and the county is to move forward with this,” Martin said.

The officials often disagreed heatedly during the workshop, but under the prodding of Supervisor Maggie Kildee, each participant agreed to go forward with the plan.

They agreed that it is better to move to establish the agency now and hammer out agreements on the agency’s and cities’ legal and financial liability later, rather than waiting up to two years to present a complete plan to the Legislature for approval.

The new agency would absorb the debts and assets of the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, which manages landfills for every city except Moorpark and Simi Valley. Those cities truck most of their trash to the privately run Simi Valley Landfill, operated by Waste Management of Ventura County.

The new authority would act as a public utility, setting trash collection rates and administering contracts with trash haulers, duties now performed by the individual city and county governments.

The agency would also allow the cities to pool their resources and save money on a countywide recycling plan that would help them meet goals set by the California Integrated Waste Management Act. That law requires all cities to reduce by 25% the amount of trash sent to landfills by 1995 and by 50% by the year 2000.

But while Assistant County Counsel William C. Moritz is preparing a final draft of the bill to be passed on to state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) for introduction to the Legislature, some rancor remains over how the deal was struck.

Ojai Councilwoman Nina Shelley criticized the group for approving the proposal without working out the details, warning that county residents would be getting “a pig in a poke.”

Sanitation district Director Clint Whitney said he would prefer that the agency be set up only after studies had been done on the contracts and legal obligations existing between the district and the cities.

And Oxnard City Councilman Michael Plisky said afterward: “I’m disgusted with the process today.

“The biggest criticism I’ve had in the past is the VRSD operated its meetings the way this was operated today,” he said, referring to the decision to act on the proposed bill without having worked out the financial and legal details.

Plisky said he has always supported the concept of the county Waste Management Authority, but would have preferred that several issues had been resolved.

He said that the bill should have included language to set up a committee of trash service users who would be allowed to comment regularly on trash rates, and that officials should have resolved the question of whether Oxnard or the sanitation district should pay an estimated $18 million for monitoring and cleaning up the now-closed city-owned and district-operated Santa Clara Landfill.

Plisky also said the authority could take control of a recycling plant that the city is planning with the district.

However, Martin and other officials said this week that they believe that Oxnard’s plans will eventually be merged with similar plans by the county for a site in Camarillo.

If approved by the Legislature, the bill would establish the new agency effective Jan. 1 and set up a 120-day ratification period.

During that time, the cities would help forge and review the agency’s bylaws and decide whether they want to ratify creation of the agency.

Although the agency would be established Jan. 1, it could take up to six months for it to take control of the Bailard and Toland Road landfills now operated by the sanitation district and the recycling facilities planned by Oxnard and the county, Martin said.

NEXT STEP

Assistant County Counsel William C. Moritz will spend the next two weeks refining a proposed bill to establish the Ventura County Waste Management Authority along guidelines laid out by city and county officials, then copies of the bill will be sent to the county’s 10 city councils for approval. The bill will then be given to state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), who has agreed to help the county bring it before the Legislature for final approval, which could establish the authority as early as Jan. 1.