Trash Hauler May Try to Transfer City Contract

A local trash-hauling company may try to transfer its contract to pick up garbage in Thousand Oaks to another hauler, even though the City Council last week unanimously rejected such a move, a lawyer for the firm said Tuesday.

G. I. Industries, which is being purchased by a larger firm, may ask a federal bankruptcy judge for permission to transfer its waste disposal contract to the purchasing firm against the city’s wishes, attorney Andrew Caine said.

“On the most basic level, we have always said that either we’ll get the cities’ approval or the court’s,” Caine said.

For months, G. I. executives have tried to persuade public officials throughout eastern Ventura County to transfer their contracts to Western Waste Industries of Torrance as part of the proposed sale. G. I. Industries has contracts to pick up garbage in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and some of the county’s unincorporated areas.

Simi Valley approved the transfer; Moorpark and the county also did with some conditions. The Moorpark City Council, for example, cut the contract from four to two years to give council members an early chance to review the new company’s performance.

But Thousand Oaks council members voted last week to reject the transfer, citing concerns about the company’s conduct. In August, a former Western Waste vice president was fined $5,000 and sentenced to three years probation in connection with a political corruption investigation in Louisiana.

Even though Western Waste is itself being purchased by USA Waste Services of Dallas, council members expressed reservations about dealing with the firm.

“We just don’t want to do business with a company that is surrounded by this cloud of controversy,” Councilwoman Elois Zeanah said.

Caine said Tuesday that G. I. Industries has always asserted its right to transfer contracts without city permission, as long as the new company was able to perform under the terms of the contracts. The company approached the county and individual cities “in the spirit of cooperation,” he said.

If the company decides to press forward against the Thousand Oaks City Council’s wishes, the final decision on transferring the contract would fall to the federal bankruptcy court judge overseeing G. I.’s proposed sale, according to Caine and a lawyer for the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy.

Staff writer Miguel Bustillo contributed to this story.