Payoff Allegations Raise Questions About Trash Hauler

With allegations of bribes swirling around a Torrance-based company that is trying to take over the operation of Ventura County’s second-largest waste hauler, local government officials said they want a thorough look into the company’s business practices.

After learning from a story Friday in The Times that Western Waste Industries allegedly gave a former Compton city councilwoman monthly cash payoffs, one former county waste commissioner suggested that the district attorney’s office look into the matter. Western Waste Industries wants to buy G.I. Industries in Simi Valley.

In another case, Western Waste Industries pleaded no contest in 1989 to felony charges and paid a $1-million fine for plotting to eliminate competition and inflate commercial trash hauling prices and for illegal dumping of hazardous waste. In that case, brought by the Los Angeles County district attorney, one of its officers was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

Ojai Mayor Nina Shelley, a former Ventura County waste commissioner, said the Ventura County district attorney’s office should use its expertise to find out what it can about Western Waste Industries before it can start operating in this county.

“Who other than the district attorney’s office is capable of looking at that kind of information?” Shelley asked.

“Decision makers need some record of performance or some record about whether [a company] has been in trouble,” she said. “[The district attorney] was able to bring Waste Management’s dastardly deeds to the fore when they were coming into the county, I think they should at least look at this matter.”

She was referring to Waste Management Inc.’s attempt four years ago to build a landfill in Weldon Canyon, during which the district attorney compiled a report for the Board of Supervisors detailing fines and citations issued against the company.

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury had no comment Friday, and officials from Western Waste Industries did not return repeated phone calls.

Moorpark City Councilman John Wozniak, a member of the East County Waste Task Force, said that before Moorpark does business with Western Waste the city would require that a background check be done.

“We want to know who we’ll be doing business with,” Wozniak said. “Obviously we wouldn’t tolerate that kind of thing [bribes] . . . I imagine we will contact cities who’ve done business with [Western] and check them out and find out just what kind of reputation they have.’

G.I. Industries controls exclusive contracts to pick up trash in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and the unincorporated portions of Ventura County. It serves more than 40,000 customers.

Although the company has been in bankruptcy reorganization for the last three years, G.I. Industries generated an estimated $20 million in revenue in 1995.

Two weeks ago, family members who controlled G.I. Industries said they had accepted an offer to sell their stake in the firm to Western Waste for a stock swap valued at $4.5 million.

But on Thursday, the county--along with the cities of Moorpark and Thousand Oaks--filed objections to the sale in bankruptcy court saying that the contracts do not automatically transfer if G.I. Industries is sold.

Simi Valley did not file objections to the sale, saying that as long as the company taking over G.I. Industries could fulfill the terms of the contract it would not object.

Simi Valley City Councilman Bill Davis, who serves on the waste task force with Wozniak, said that if Western Waste takes over G.I. Industries he would not expect much to change.

“Some people might be getting paranoid about all this but I’m taking a positive outlook on everything,” Davis said. “If [G.I.] is sold, the buyer must continue on with the original contract.”

Davis said he already knows Western Waste’s government affairs representative, Chuck Jelloian, from when Jelloian was operations director of the foundation that built the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

“He has a good relationship with the city and I expect our city, Thousand Oaks, and Moorpark will all be sitting down with him in the near future to discuss this,” he said.

But lawyers for the county, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark said they had a responsibility to thoroughly review any company with which they will be doing business before agreeing to any sale.

“The contracts themselves cannot be transferred or signed over without some sort of review,” said Deputy County Counsel Don Hurley. “We filed our objection because right now we lack background information . . . sufficient enough to determine the financial wherewithal of the firm and its reputation.”

In its objection, Thousand Oaks complained that it had not even received an official notice of the sale.

“Thousand Oaks has not been served with any of the moving papers and learned of this motion from newspaper articles and information from other public entities,” said Assistant City Atty. Nancy Kierstyn Schreiner in court documents.

Craig Phillips, a senior program manager who oversees the county’s contract with G.I. Industries for the solid waste department, said the county also was kept out of the loop.