Mission Viejo Near Agreement With Waste Firm

About two-thirds of the city’s trash controversy is close to being cleaned up.

Waste Management, the largest of five waste haulers who have refused to stop picking up trash in Mission Viejo after losing out on the commercial garbage franchise in July, gave the City Council an offer Monday night that has council members nodding their heads.

The trash company has agreed to stop serving about 180 commercial vendors worth approximately $40,000 per month--about two-thirds of the accounts under dispute--if the city gives back about $94,000 in trash fees paid by Waste Management since 1992.

Although a few technicalities remain to be ironed out, “we’re close to an agreement,” Councilwoman Sherri M. Butterfield said.

The company had been among the trash haulers who were supposed to leave Mission Viejo after the city awarded an exclusive contract to Western Waste in July.

The haulers refused to stop servicing their accounts, saying state law requires five years’ notice be given any waste firm doing business in a city for the past three years.

Last week, Mission Viejo filed a lawsuit against all of the haulers except Waste Management, maintaining that the same state code says trash companies must have an official franchise to qualify for receiving five years’ notice.

Waste Management was left off the lawsuit because city officials felt they were close to an agreement with the trash company.