Redondo Approves Trash Pickup Contract; Opponents Vow Rematch

Amid charges of political favoritism, the Redondo Beach City Council on Tuesday awarded a Carson-based trash company an exclusive multimillion-dollar contract to haul and recycle the city’s refuse for the next five years.

Western Waste Industries, the smallest of Southern California’s three major trash haulers but a growing force in the South Bay, was chosen in three separate contract competitions to collect refuse from all of the city’s single-family homes, apartments and condominiums and the vast majority of its businesses.

However, opponents to the contract vowed to bring the matter up for reconsideration next month, when Councilman Ron Cawdrey--an advocate for Western Waste and the swing vote on the council--is scheduled to step down. Cawdrey will be replaced in a runoff election May 14 by one of two candidates--Michael Herman or Joe White--both of whom have expressed reservations about granting an exclusive waste hauling contract.

City officials said residential pickup rates will either drop or remain the same, but will not increase under the new contract. Western Waste, which already services the city’s single-family homes, promised in the agreement not to raise rates for the new customers--most of whom live in apartments and condos.

Officials added that, in fact, rates for commercial customers and those in multifamily residential dwellings are expected to drop by 25% to 30% across the board as the firm passes on savings from economies of scale. Rates vary according to the size of the complex and frequency of trash collection, but as an example, twice-weekly trash pickup for a four-plex would drop by about a third to $100 a month under the exclusive contract, said Tami Knutson, resource conservation supervisor.

The consolidation of the trash contracts, said Public Works Director Ken Montgomery, is an effort to help the city comply with a new state law mandating that it reduce the amount of trash it sends to landfills by 25% by 1995 and by 50% by 2000. Compliance means recycling, and proponents of the contract have argued that the best way to ensure that recycling succeeds is to have one hauler handling all the city’s refuse and recyclables, and to then make the hauler accountable to the city.

Last year the city of Carson also signed an exclusive waste-hauling contract with Western Waste.

But critics, both on and off the council, have charged the exclusivity amounts to a lucrative monopoly for Western Waste, whose territory in Redondo Beach will include virtually every trash bin except those at TRW and the Galleria at South Bay, which negotiate privately for their refuse pickup.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” LaVerne Boethling, a condominium owner, complained to the council. “We’re trapped now. Once you give an exclusive agreement to anybody, we have no room to negotiate (privately) for a better price.”

Councilman Stevan Colin agreed.

“I think the city is getting screwed with this contract,” said Colin, who argued unsuccessfully that the contract amounted to an exclusive franchise, and that therefore it should have been aired at a public hearing under the provisions of the City Charter.

Instead, the contract was negotiated and approved by the City Council alone, in a process that was heavily charged with politics. In the eight months since the council began considering an exclusive deal, lobbying by Western Waste and its competitors, Browning Ferris Industries and Waste Management Inc., has been intense.

And in recent weeks, Councilman Cawdrey, an advocate of Western Waste, was charged by Colin with conflict of interest because Western Waste had contributed $1,500 to his failed bid for a third council term and had given a job to his son, Ron Cawdrey Jr. Cawdrey acknowledged that his son works for Western Waste, but contended that the connection was irrelevant because his son is 35 years old and no longer a dependent.

Cawdrey ultimately was given permission by the city attorney to vote on the Western Waste contract. But the furor prompted the council to include a provision in its new waste-handling ordinance prohibiting any contract from being awarded to any firm that makes a reportable contribution or gift to a council member or city employee during the prior year.

The 5-0 council vote, however, does not mean Redondo Beach’s trash wars are over. The contract does not become legally enforceable until June 7, by which time Cawdrey’s successor will have been named. And Colin and Councilwoman Barbara Doerr, staunch critics of the exclusive deal, said they voted for the contract only to allow themselves the parliamentary privilege of making a formal call for reconsideration after Cawdrey has stepped down.

“You’re cheating the people,” Doerr told the council. “This is all a bunch of garbage.”