Sunshine Canyon Vote to Be Delayed

Opponents of the expansion of the Sunshine Canyon into Granada Hills will get a few more days to lobby the Los Angeles City Council, after the city attorney’s office issued a ruling Monday that will likely require two more votes to enact the measure.

City lawyers said the council’s 9-5 vote last week to approve the expansion made so many changes in the zoning ordinance that a new first reading will be required today.

If any council member objects during the first reading, which is likely, the ordinance is put over for a second reading a week later, when it would only require eight votes for adoption.

Backers of the expansion had hoped to have a vote today on the second reading, but the absence of three key supporters would have probably forced the matter to be delayed anyway. Council members Rita Walters, Ruth Galanter and Rudy Svorinich Jr. are all scheduled to be absent.

Under the proposal, Browning-Ferris Industries would be allowed to reopen a section of the landfill it closed in Granada Hills in 1991 and dump about 55 million tons of trash in the city portion during the next 26 years.

A the same time, proposals to require trash trucks to convert to clean fuel and to require half of the franchise fee to go to neighborhoods around the landfill, also will be on today’s agenda.