SANTA ANA : Judge Adds Schools to Trash-Hauling Suit

A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Waste Management Inc. and the city of Santa Ana to include the Santa Ana Unified School District in a lawsuit that seeks to stop a family-run business from picking up school garbage.

The city last year granted an exclusive contract to Great Western Reclamation, a subsidiary of trash giant Waste Management Inc., and also drafted an ordinance prohibiting any other trash hauler from working within city boundaries. The contract specifically includes “educational institutions.”

The city and Great Western Reclamation sued the Newport Beach-based 5-Star Rubbish Co., alleging that by hauling trash for the school district the company is violating that contract. The company is also complicating city efforts to comply with state recycling law, the suit alleges, because the city has no control over the garbage generated by the schools.

On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Thrasher added the school district as a defendant in the civil case and said he would not hear arguments on the matter until April 7, in order to give the school district time to respond to the revised complaint.

“The school district is intimately involved in the question of the contract that it has granted to 5-Star,” Thrasher said.

The district awarded its trash contract to 5-Star, owned by Dolores Otting, in January after a months-long argument with the city over whether the district had the right to do so.

By contracting with Otting, who submitted a bid significantly lower than Great Western Reclamation’s, the school district also appears to be in violation of the city ordinance. But City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said no money has yet changed hands between the school district and Otting.

Otting said the lawsuit is quashing free enterprise in the city.

“It’s too bad the city has to have such a vendetta against us. This is going to go on forever,” Otting said. “If the city wants the school district to use Waste Management (as their hauler) then the city should pay for it. They have no right to dip into the school district’s budget.”

Some other Orange County school districts contract with small haulers even though cities where they are located have exclusive franchise agreements with Waste Management. But Great Western Reclamation President Robert J. Coyle said the fact that Santa Ana has a municipal ordinance prohibiting other haulers from working within city limits strengthens this case.