Trouble With the Trash Trucks

The deaths last year of two 8-year-old boys, when the piston ram of a malfunctioning trash truck raked the side of their school bus, cast a long shadow over city maintenance procedures and the contractual relationship between the city and a troubled truck manufacturer. Now, following a report by Times staff writer Robert J. Lopez, those shadows appear even longer.

As far back as 1992, documents obtained by The Times show, city employees raised serious questions about design and workmanship flaws in trash trucks produced by Amrep Inc, an Ontario, Calif.-based company that has done business with the city since 1979. Yet despite obvious problems and repeated admonitions by city supervisors and employees, the Department of General Services continued to enter into contracts with Amrep and a partner, Inland White GMC.

Indeed, long before the accident that took the lives of Francisco Javier Mata and Brian Serrano, it was clear that Amrep trucks had a less than sterling record:

* Amrep trucks broke down so often that the department went hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget for spare parts, records showed. From late 1991 to 1994, the contract with the company for truck parts tripled, from $315,000 to $976,000.

* Within weeks of hitting the road in 1992, new Amrep trash trucks had developed weld cracks. Subsequently, cracks began showing up in the same trash compacting mechanism that killed the two boys.

* A year later, despite the problems, the city signed the largest trash contract in city history with Amrep. Shortly thereafter, maintenance crews reported breaks in compactor cylinders on new trucks. Those problems did not prevent the company from winning another contract for $18 million in 1995.

Common sense dictates that this record would lead to formal reviews or even cancellation of the contract. It didn’t. Critics are also concerned about what they see was a conflict between Amrep and GSA Fleet Services Director Harold Cain. Cain, who went to work last year for Amrep partner Inland, has been accused of renewing contracts against the advice of employees. Some attribute the actions to his relationship with Amrep. That’s a serious charge that the city controller’s office and the Ethics Commission should pursue.

In the meantime, the city council and Mayor Richard Riordan must take a closer look at contracting procedures. City contracts should to be linked to performance, and employees should have some line of recourse if their suggestions are being ignored by a supervisor expected to be competent in his job.