Grand Jury Urges Expansion of Toland Dump : Government: Watchdog group’s annual report claims county leaders have allowed politics to dominate the trash-disposal issue.

Lashing out at county leaders for a “fragmented” and “parochial” approach to trash disposal, Ventura County’s grand jury urged expansion of the Toland Road Landfill near Santa Paula as a way to handle west county trash.

Issuing its annual report, the watchdog panel of citizens also leveled sharp criticism at the county schools for their handling of truants and accused operators of Kenney Grove Park near Fillmore of discriminating against the homeless.

But the grand jury reserved its most biting criticism for county leaders’ failure to come up with an alternative plan for disposing of western Ventura County’s trash. Bailard Landfill in Oxnard is scheduled to close in mid- or late 1996.

County leaders have allowed politics to dominate the trash issue, which has dragged on without a solution and at taxpayer expense for more than 10 years, the report states.

“The elected officials who should be providing leadership on the issue . . . are fragmented and appear to be concerned mainly with the parochial interests of their most vociferous constituents,” the report said. “The disposal issue thus remains adrift with many of those who should be making decisions steering aimlessly or not at all.”

The report went on to dismiss proposals to export trash to another county or state by truck or rail as too expensive or politically risky.

It noted, for example, that opposition is quickly building against a proposed expansion of Los Angeles County’s Chiquita Landfill, where operators are seeking to import more Ventura County waste.

A proposal to expand Toland Road Landfill’s capacity from 2 million to 15 million tons of garbage appears to offer the county the best solution environmentally and financially, the report states.

“The Board of Supervisors should not attempt to delay or prejudge this project but should exercise its permitting powers and evaluate the proposed expansion in good faith,” the report said.

Representatives of the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, which operates Toland, said they were pleased by the report’s findings. The district is already conducting an environmental review of the expansion, which the district hopes will be ready in September.

“If we can take the politics out of the decision-making process we can arrive at a result that will benefit the entire county,” said district administrator Lori Norton. “It would certainly make it easier for a decision to be made.”

Supervisor Maggie Kildee, whose district includes the Toland Road Landfill, said she remains adamantly opposed to its expansion. Kildee said the grand jury’s findings “are absolutely, totally wrong.”

“They’re not looking at this with their eyes open in terms of what’s happening in the trash world today,” she said. “It’s a new time. There’s a different way.”

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Kildee said that the county must continue to explore other options for disposing of its trash, including advance recycling and other technologies.

“The grand jury report is a reflection of an old way of looking at the trash issue,” she said. “It’s been the elected leaders who have found the time to find out that there are better ways of dealing with it than putting another hole in the ground.”

But grand jury foreman David Cuellar of Moorpark said Toland still represents the best solution to the county’s trash dilemma.

“It’s the most feasible and the most economic option,” he said.

While praising a number of other county agencies, the grand jury also accused the county superintendent of schools office of mishandling funds and intimidating staff members.

County Schools Supt. Charles Weis admitted this week that Gateway Community School in Camarillo has operated improperly since 1990.

Gateway--which educates truants and other troubled teen-agers--had misused $8 million in state funds by failing to give students classroom instruction every day. Instead, students have been enrolled in independent study courses.

The grand jury report also said that the county’s juvenile hall, McBride School, is “bleak and austere” in comparison to Gateway, where officials have “purchased expensive patio furniture and had new carpet installed.”

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And neither juvenile facility offers alcohol or drug treatment, although many of their students suffer from substance-abuse addictions, the report said.

Staff members at McBride told grand jurors that they have been intimidated and even transferred for complaining about the disparities at the two schools, the report said.

Weis, contacted Friday afternoon, denied any staff member has been harassed. He also said that an internal audit showed many of the allegations made by the grand jury are unfounded.

The superintendent said the panel inaccurately reported McBride had no full programs for bilingual education and special education. Weis also denied a grand jury assertion that money earmarked for programs to help neglected and delinquent students has been used to pay the salary of a teacher at Gateway.

“The grand jury did not do as in-depth of an investigation as our staff did,” Weis said.

As for the Kenney Grove Park near Fillmore, the grand jury said operators are violating their lease by discriminating against the homeless. In particular, the report noted that the 15.3-acre park is closed to the general public and that campers must pay a $25 cleaning deposit--a fee most homeless people cannot afford.

Rona LeDoux, who with her husband has operated the park since 1981, called the report “erroneous” and said homeless people have chosen on their own not to stay at the site.

Camping is available at the park on a reservation basis to groups using five or more campsites. Le Doux said homeless families take up only one campsite and have to move to another location within the park if they are staying in an area that has been reserved by a group.

In other areas, the grand jury recommended that:

* The Oxnard Redevelopment Agency develop an effective program to deliver more manageable and cost-effective services to neighborhoods it serves.

* Casa Pacifica, the county’s new children’s crisis care center, initiate tighter security measures to decrease the number of wards who go absent without leave. In its first six months, 2 youths walked away from the campus.

* Mental-health officials build a planned, inpatient psychiatric facility as soon as possible to decrease the walk-away problem.

* The Public Social Services Agency increase safety measures to protect employees at the Simi Valley welfare reception office.

* Steckel Park’s long-term camping area be cleaned up and restrooms be built in day areas that are now closed because they have no toilets.

In addition to its watchdog function, the 1994-95 grand jury also returned 48 criminal indictments, including 10 in murder cases.

Times correspondent Barbara Murphy contributed to this report.