SANTA ANA : Restraining Order to Stop Hauling Denied

Declaring that no emergency existed, a Superior Court judge Monday denied the city of Santa Ana and its franchise trash hauler a restraining order that would have stopped a family-run company from picking up garbage at the city’s schools.

“There will be no temporary restraining order. . . . The waste is presently being picked up and it will remain so,” said Judge Thomas N. Thrasher.

The city and Great Western Reclamation, a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc., filed a complaint last week against 5 Star Rubbish Service, claiming it is breaking a city law that grants all trash hauling rights within city boundaries to the city-contracted hauler.

By picking up trash from the district’s 50 school sites, Dolores Otting’s Newport Beach-based company is also making it “expensive and burdensome, if not impossible” for the city to meet state-mandated recycling goals, the complaint says.

Thrasher set the matter for hearing on March 17.

Otting was awarded the school contract in January after submitting a five-year bid that was $700,000 cheaper than Great Western’s bid, school officials said.