Supervisor Testifies About Tainted Contracts

San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger on Wednesday testified that he took no steps to cancel lucrative landfill and billboard contracts in 1996 even after hearing allegations that some county officials may have received bribes and kickbacks to get them approved.

Hansberger said that at the time none of the corruption allegations had been proved and he feared the county would be sued if it withdrew from the agreements.

“I think we still have a system where people are innocent until they are proven guilty,” Hansberger said.

His testimony came during a civil lawsuit filed by San Bernardino County to collect restitution for damages the county allegedly suffered due to the corruption schemes. Several businessmen and two high-ranking county officials involved in the contract deals pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges.

County officials argued that San Bernardino is entitled to the profits from those deals, as well as the bribes and salaries the two high-ranking officials collected.

The defendants have argued that the county benefited from the two contracts.

The trial is being held in Ventura County Superior Court because of heavy publicity in San Bernardino County.

At the center of the schemes was former county administrative officer James Hlawek, who has pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges. Hlawek has cooperated in the civil case, admitting he took cash and other payments from executives who were doing business with the county. He has not been sentenced.

Hlawek said he helped Norcal Solid Waste Systems get a county contract to take over the county’s landfill operations. The contract, approved by the county in September 1995 without a competitive bid, was worth at least $200 million, county officials have said.

Hlawek also helped an Orange County businessman, William “Shep” McCook, get county approval to build seven billboards on county land.

Randall Waier, an attorney for the defendants, called Hansberger as a witness to buttress the argument that San Bernardino County profited from the landfill and billboard contracts, and that county officials continued to honor the contracts even after the corruption scheme was uncovered.

To support his point, Waier showed Hansberger a contract amendment that the supervisor and the rest of the board approved for the Norcal landfill agreement even after the supervisors learned that the FBI was investigating Hlawek.

Hansberger said the amendment seemed beneficial to the county.

Waier also showed him a county audit from August 1999 that concluded that the landfill contract was competitive.

Hansberger conceded that the landfill contract offered “some economic value” to the county, but he said the county would have found a better deal had it sought offers from other trash companies.

The county ended the contract with Norcal in 2000, shortly after Hlawek, his predecessor, Harry Mays, and former Norcal Vice President Kenneth James Walsh pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges.

Outside the courtroom, Michael Sachs, an attorney for the county, dismissed the argument that the contracts were competitive.

He said the county did not seek competitive bids because of Hlawek’s tainted influence and will never know if the county could have found more competitive contracts with other firms.