Council Halts Purchases From Trash Truck Firm

In its strongest response yet to last December’s fatal accident between a city trash truck and a school bus, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to immediately stop purchasing any new trucks or parts because of disclosures in The Times that the city funneled millions of dollars to the manufacturer despite repeated warnings about the vehicles’ reliability.

The council also launched a broad investigation into “allegations of mismanagement, irregularities, fraud and possible criminal activities” between certain city employees and the two companies who build the automated truck, Amrep Inc. and Inland Empire White GMC.

“It’s urgent. It’s imperative that we move on this, really right away,” Councilwoman Rita Walters told her colleagues before the emergency 9-1 vote to suspend vehicle purchases. “We just need to stop this little machine in its tracks.”

Walters and other leaders at City Hall expressed particular outrage that General Services Department officials failed to provide critical information, or misrepresented facts, during meetings and public hearings convened since the crash.

Board of Public Works Vice President Frank Cardenas--whose suggestion the week of the accident that the city stop buying Amrep trucks was rebuffed by the city attorney’s office and other staffers--welcomed the council’s action Tuesday.

“This whole thing flunks the smell test, completely,” Cardenas said.

The Times reported Sunday that Harold Cain, former director of fleet services, failed to tell his supervisors that maintenance supervisors had criticized Amrep and Inland’s reliability and suggested that the city sever its ties to the companies. Cain retired last year and later went to work for Inland, which manufactured the trucks’ frames.

The two companies also submitted--under the penalty of perjury--false documents while bidding for a multimillion-dollar contract to produce trash trucks, the newspaper revealed.

At the time of the accident, Amrep was delivering about three new trucks a week to the city under a pending contract. The company also provides parts.

Randall C. Bacon, whose General Services Department oversees vehicle purchases, said Amrep deliveries have already been on hold for a couple of weeks because of the company’s legal problems. While Bacon said the moratorium may be a smart move in light of negative publicity over the company, he warned that the trash truck fleet could be slowed or halted by a long delay in deliveries of parts and vehicles.

“We’ll have to assess how many parts we have in stock,” Bacon said. “There’s trucks to be repaired every day and we’ll have to provide parts, or don’t repair them.”

In the wake of The Times’ article, two City Council committees have scheduled special meetings for this week on the safety of trash trucks and problems with Amrep. The lone vote against the moratorium Tuesday came from Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who said he preferred that the matter be dealt with today in the meeting of his committee, which oversees general services.