West Covina : Funds OKd in Landfill Fight

The West Covina City Council has approved $1.3 million to carry on the city’s legal and legislative battle against the BKK landfill for eight more months.

The funding, which is enough to put a dozen more police officers on city streets for a year, includes $1.2 million for legal fees to press the city’s lawsuit to close the landfill by 1995 and to defend the city from BKK’s countersuit. The landfill operator wants to stay open as late as 2006, when its city-issued land-use permit expires.

The city also will spend $45,000 in public relations related to BKK issues and $60,000 to fund lobbying efforts against proposed state landfill legislation that the city considers favorable to BKK.

The council expects the funds to last through June, when it will have to decide how much more should be spent on efforts to close the dump.

This summer, the city sued BKK to force the landfill to close by November, 1995, the date landfill owners agreed upon in a 1985 memorandum of understanding with the city. However, BKK officials say the city did not live up to that agreement, which also called for the two parties to work together in developing a plan for a commercial center near the landfill. That plan has yet to be approved.

The $45,000 the council set aside for public relations will enable the city to send residents a newsletter explaining BKK-related matters, assistant city manger Steve Wylie said.

The council also voted at its special meeting Oct. 25 to direct city staff to research the cost of commissioning a survey to determine residents’ attitudes toward BKK and the city’s insistence that the dump close in November, 1995.