VENTURA : Year Extension OKd for Recycling Firm

Despite a staff recommendation to extend a recycling contract for three years, the Ventura City Council approved only a 12-month extension to Gold Coast Recycling’s agreement to reuse Ventura’s recyclable waste.

For more than two hours late Monday, the City Council debated about how long to extend the five-year agreement that expires next month.

But on a 5-2 vote that came after 11 p.m. Monday, a majority of council members said the deal should only be extended for one year.

“We need to support and work together . . . and three years goes way beyond Bailard (Landfill’s) closing,” Councilman Gary Tuttle said.

The landfill will close no later than May, 1997, but could shut down as soon as August, 1996, officials from the Ventura Regional Sanitation District said.

Don Slack of Gold Coast Recycling told the council that he needed a three-year contract extension to give him more time to plan a proposed environmental business park and new recycling center.

But Jim Harrison, vice president of E. J. Harrison, which owns a minority interest in Gold Coast Recycling, asked for the one-year extension, in part because his company is considering an option to buy out Gold Coast.

Five council members agreed to the one-year extension, on the condition that Gold Coast officials negotiate with the city and E. J. Harrison on a new three-year contract before the extension expires.

Councilmen Jack Tingstrom and Steve Bennett opposed the motion, saying they did not want to threaten the proposed environmental park or lower the value of Gold Coast Recycling.