Orange Trash Hauler to Be Petition Target

Members of a local watchdog group who say city officials have been too slow to act on a burgeoning recycling scandal are launching a populist drive to scrap the city’s contracts with its trash hauler and to test the waters for a recall petition against the mayor.

“We’re fed up,” said Carole Walters, president of the Orange Taxpayers Assn. “The City Council can be recalled if they don’t get it. The mayor is laughing this off.”

Walters and others associated with the group said they have been reading about allegations involving the socially prominent Hambarian family for weeks and have seen little action from City Hall.

The Hambarians, owners of Orange Disposal Service Inc. and Orange Resource Recovery Systems Inc., are the targets of a criminal investigation by the Orange Police Department and the district attorney’s office for possible fraud and misappropriation of funds.

Orange Disposal has held the city’s trash contract for 42 years, and Orange Resource Recovery, a subsidiary that operates the company’s recycling facility, won its 1994 contract without facing competitive bids.

Jeffery Hambarian, who ran the recycling plant until he was fired in March, is suspected of bilking the city out of as much as $6 million worth of salvage revenue.

The city last week took the first step to terminate the two contracts, informing the companies that they are in default.

But the Orange taxpayers group said the family has behaved with such arrogance since the allegations surfaced in early June that the city needs to make the inevitable break.

Documents recently released by the city have revealed that the companies asked for a $17-million expansion of their plant and a 32% rate hike, requests that were both denied by city officials.

“The Hambarians are just laughing at us,” Walters said. “I don’t want them to think we are going to go to sleep on this like the city did.”

Members of the group will be collecting signatures on the petition to cut off the Hambarians and their companies in front of the Target at 2191 N. Tustin St. from 3 to 7 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Walters said. They will also ask citizens if they would support a recall drive.

Z. Harry Astor, attorney for the Hambarian family, said the two companies have corrected any problems.

“We don’t think it’s appropriate to even consider such a petition,” Astor said. “We are curing any defaults we can, and we expect the contract to continue.”

City Attorney David A. De Berry agreed that the city, for legal reasons, cannot move any more quickly on the contract issue.

If the city decides that the Hambarians are in default on the contracts, then council members must hold a public hearing to discuss termination of the contracts, he said.

“This is a contract that involves millions and millions of dollars, and I’m not going to have the city put on a case like that unless we have all the evidence,” De Berry said. “There is too much at stake to rush into this.”

Mayor Joanne Coontz, who has become a lightening rod for criticism of the city’s response, said that legal issues take time.

“We have legal questions to do with the contract and legal questions that will result from the civil and criminal investigations,” she said. “The notice of default sends [the Hambarians] a message that we mean serious business.”

As for the possibility of a recall drive, Coontz said that such threats are commonly made across the county, although she has never faced one herself.

“I’m the mayor,” she said. “I suppose that as mayor and leader some people are going to focus on you. But there are five of us on the council.”

Two other members of the current council, Mike Spurgeon and Mark Murphy, also signed the deal to let the Hambarians handle the city’s recycling in 1994, she added.