Perrodin Urges Probe of Garbage Contract

Ripping his predecessor’s administration as fraught with corruption and nepotism, Compton Mayor Eric Perrodin on Tuesday called for an investigation into a $7-million trash contract approved under former Mayor Omar Bradley.

“It’s terrible here,” Perrodin said at a news conference in a mayor’s office that has changed hands three times in eight months.

After comparing Compton to Chicago, a city notorious for political corruption, Perrodin said he believed that law enforcement had turned a blind eye to wrongdoing by Compton’s elected officials because it did not wish to create the impression of persecuting a “majority black” city.

“If this stuff was going on in a city that’s Caucasian, there would have been a lot of indictments already,” he said.

According to the 2000 census, Compton’s population is 53% to 57% Latino and the black population is 40% to 41%.

Perrodin spoke to reporters minutes before leaving for a City Council meeting. He said he was making the comments because he has gotten no help from council members who support Bradley. “The only thing I can do is let the citizens know what’s going on,” he said before airing numerous complaints and accusations.

Bradley was said to be meeting with attorneys and was unavailable for comment.

“The trash deal smells,” Perrodin said, deriding the City Council’s January 2001 approval of a 15-year, no-bid contract to Hub City Disposal, a company run by Michael V. Aloyan. Aloyan testified in 1996 that he gave bribes to two former City Council members who were later convicted of extortion and sent to federal prison.

Perrodin said Aloyan sent Bradley and former Councilwoman Marcine Shaw and their families on trips to China and Africa. He did not provide documentation Tuesday to back the allegations. “[Bradley’s] brother chairs the company’s board of directors, and Shaw’s son sits on the board. It seems like a quid pro quo,” Perrodin said.

Aloyan hung up on a reporter when asked during a phone conversation whether he paid for trips by Bradley and Shaw.

Perrodin also criticized the council’s approval of a claim by Bradley that would pay him $840,000 in legal fees and $43,000 in back pay. The council, still controlled by Bradley supporters, approved the claim the same day Perrodin was reinstalled.

Bradley incurred the fees during his legal challenge to the June election that unseated him. Bradley returned to office briefly last month after a judge ruled in his favor, but the state’s 2nd District Court of Appeal reinstated Perrodin, pending the outcome of his appeal.

Perrodin, a deputy district attorney, criticized the hiring practices of Bradley’s administration.

“I’ve never seen so many ex-convicts,” he said, adding that he dislikes coming to City Hall because “I could be walking down a corridor and end up with a knife in my back.”

He also questioned what he said were excessive payments to Frank Wheaton, a city spokesman during Bradley’s two terms who was rehired during Bradley’s brief return to office.

Wheaton, whose salary is $75,000, said that any payments by the city above that amount were for services “above and beyond the call of duty,” and were approved by the council.

“I don’t have to defend my work,” Wheaton said.