Fullerton Council OKs $5-Million-a-Year Recycling Pact : Waste: Members give Anaheim’s Taormina Industries the contract and reject proposal from longtime local hauler to spend $18 million in bonds to build facility in city.

In an often emotional late-night debate, the City Council Tuesday picked trash-hauling giant Taormina Industries for a $5-million-a-year recycling contract, rejecting a bid from a local firm that wanted to use public money to build a waste plant in the city.

Ultimately, council members said they were unwilling to spend up to $18 million in city bonds on a proposal by longtime city hauler MG Disposals Systems that could have created more than 100 jobs for the Fullerton economy.

“I come down on the side of letting private enterprise do it,” said Mayor Molly McClanahan.

The vote was 4-1 in favor of opening negotiations with Taormina Industries. Councilman Don Bankhead cast the lone opposing vote, saying he was uncomfortable with the way bids had been solicited.

The competition between the two firms had sparked a wave of community interest in Fullerton, and a standing-room-only crowd of more than 150 listeners packed the council chambers for the debate.

The city plans to spend $5 million a year to divert some of its trash from the local landfill to a recycling plant. That effort comes under a state mandate directing all local governments to step up recycling to save landfill space.

Pat McNelly, head of a city committee that studied the issue, told council members that Tuesday’s debate marked “a milestone” in the city’s recycling efforts and should shape policy for years to come.

MG Disposal has held the exclusive rights to collect garbage from businesses and homes in Fullerton for the past 38 years. But city staff members nonetheless recommended that the new, $5-million contract go to Taormina in part because of its regional sweep in trash collection.

Taormina submitted the lowest bid for the contract at $37.75 per ton of trash collected. It already has trash contracts in six other North County cities, and it operates a recycling plant in Anaheim, just six miles from Fullerton.

In contrast, MG proposed the creation of a new, $15-million recycling complex in Fullerton--financed by the public and run by the company--as a way of ensuring local control and creating new jobs for the city economy. Its bids ranged from $41.33 to $53 per ton.

The staff recommendation in favor of Taormina set off a public relations blitz by MG, as the trash hauler enlisted letter writers and put out bumper stickers and lapel pins to help people show their allegiance. City officials said they had rarely seen anything like it.

A third company--CR Transfer of Stanton--also submitted a bid for the contract at $41.90 per ton, but city officials said they believed Tuesday’s vote was essentially a two-horse race.

The city’s search for a recycling operator was mandated by state law.

Local governments must begin diverting 25% of their waste from local landfills by the year 1995 and as much as half the garbage by 2000.

For city residents, the mandated changes will probably mean an extra $2 on monthly trash bills.