Coalition Attacks Landfill Initiative : Weldon Canyon: The west county government leaders vow they won’t let voters approve the dump without a fight.

A coalition of west Ventura County leaders launched a counteroffensive to the Weldon Canyon landfill initiative Thursday, only days after the measure’s supporters announced they had gathered enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot.

Joined at a press conference by county Supervisors Susan Lacey and Maria VanderKolk, and a representative from Supervisor Maggie Kildee’s office, City Council members from Ventura and Ojai said the initiative puts their pristine back yards at the mercy of other county residents looking for a convenient new dump site.

“At what point can some county cities decide land use for other cities?” Ventura City Councilman Gary Tuttle asked. “If this is the way we are going to make land use decisions in this county, beware--you could be next.”

Ventura City Council members Steve Bennett, Rosa Lee Measures and Jim Monahan also attended the event, held near the mouth of Weldon Canyon.

The city officials warned they would not let county voters approve the proposed landfill without a vigorous fight.

“This would be an expensive, long-term mistake for the people of this county. Landfills are an antiquated, easy solution. We can and we must do better,” said Ojai City Councilman Steve Olsen, who was joined by Councilwoman Nina Shelley.

Weldon Canyon is a 6,474-acre gorge 2 1/2 miles north of Ventura and five miles south of Ojai, proposed as the dump for all the non-recyclable trash from Ventura, Oxnard, Ojai and Camarillo.

On Thursday, opponents of the landfill contended that it would:

* “Dramatically pollute” the air in the west county.

* Discourage residents from pursuing progressive recycling efforts by making it too easy to just dump trash.

* Be so large that operators would have to ship in trash from Los Angeles County just to break even financially.

Outside Ventura and Ojai, however, support for the initiative appeared widespread among other city officials.

In interviews Thursday, city council members from around the county called Ventura and Ojai officials irresponsible for blocking a ready solution to the county’s looming trash crisis.

“I think we need to be thinking regionally and not just east versus west,” Fillmore Mayor Linda Brewster said. “(The county’s existing landfills) will fill up within 10 years or so if there is no Weldon, and then where are we?”

Supporters of the initiative dismiss many of the landfill opponents’ objections as mere scare tactics.

The real issue, they say, is that with the Bailard Landfill in Oxnard nearing capacity, there will soon be nowhere left for the county’s western cities to dump their non-recyclable trash.

That trash could be hauled to Toland Landfill between Santa Paula and Fillmore, or to the Simi Valley Landfill, but officials from cities that dump in those landfills say that would only make them reach capacity faster.

Many Oxnard and Camarillo officials continue to push for Weldon Canyon as the answer to their problems. But those cities, Ventura and Ojai officials suggest, could pack their refuse in trains and ship it to Utah. Critics say that could be prohibitively expensive.

Besides, Camarillo City Councilwoman Charlotte Craven said, “It is irresponsible to have the attitude that our trash should go out of state.”

The debate over the initiative has heated up, with members of the Coalition to Stop Weldon Canyon Dump, an Ojai-based environmental group, demanding the resignation of Chairman Scott Montgomery from the Ventura County Waste Commission.

Coalition members alleged there was a conflict of interest with Montgomery serving on the commission while lobbying for the initiative. They also hinted that Montgomery, a Moorpark city councilman who is running for a supervisor’s seat, was receiving financial support from proponents of the landfill.

But at Moorpark’s City Council meeting Wednesday, Montgomery again denied that he has received donations from Taconic Resources of San Diego County, the company working on the initiative, and Waste Management Inc., the company that drew up the plans for the landfill.

“Anyone one can look at my campaign finance statements and see that I haven’t received a dime from Taconic Resources or Waste Management,” Montgomery said.

Montgomery asked the City Council to consider removing him, but council members unanimously rejected the idea.

“If (the coalition) has a problem with Montgomery, they’ll have a problem with any one of us,” Moorpark City Councilman John Wozniak said. “We’ve all signed the initiative, and we all support it.”

Times correspondent Scott Hadly contributed to this story.