COUNCIL ORDERS TRASH AUDIT CONTRACTORS TO BE SCRUTINIZED FOR POSSIBLE OVERCHARGING.Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer SANTA CLARITA Santa Clarita, city (1990 pop. 110,642), Los Angeles co., S Calif., suburb 30 mi (48 km) NW of downtown Los Angeles, on the Santa Clara River; inc. 1987. Situated in the Santa Clara valley and nearby canyons, Santa Clarita includes the former towns of Canyon Country, - The City Council voted Tuesday to audit the local garbage haulers after another round in the bruising bruising discoloration and actual hemorrhage at the site of injury, and a serious disadvantage in the meat trade. In the first 12 hours after injury the bruise is bright red, at 24 hours it is dark red, at 24 to 36 hours it loses its firm consistency and becomes watery and at 3 or political battle over the city's trash service and contracts. The 90-day audit is designed to determine whether Santa Clarita/Blue Barrel Disposal Co. and Atlas Consolidated Service, the city's two franchisees, fulfilled the terms of their contracts, the council members agreed. ``We need to get this behind us,'' said Councilman Bob Kellar. ``We need to get to a point where people will feel some confidence.'' The unanimously approved audit will explore whether residents are charged an appropriate fee for trash collection and recycling services. It will also determine whether opportunities to reduce the $22.13 monthly rate were missed or deliberately ignored by the city staff. ``This will really be a systematic examination of how the city deals with solid waste,'' said City Attorney Rufus Young. The company that secures the contract for the audit will report directly to the council's solid waste subcommittee, Mayor Laurene Weste and Councilman Cameron Smyth Cameron Smyth is a Republican who has represented Califoria's 38th Assembly district since December of 2006. He succeeded Keith Richman who was term limited. Prior to being elected to the state legislature, Assemblyman Smyth served on the Santa Clarita City Council, where he . The two haulers will contribute $50,000 to the effort, and the council did not set an upper limit for the total cost. The complete audit will examine records and contracts dating back to 1995 and will include Blue Barrel and Atlas along with their respective parent companies, Waste Management Inc. and Republic Services Inc. The audit will examine political contributions made by the trash companies to council members and other local elected officials. In addition, the audit will include the companies' charitable donations. ``That will have a chilling effect  This article or section may deal primarily with the U.S. and may not present a worldwide view. on donations,''
Councilman Frank Ferry said.
Ferry said many items in the proposed audit were subjective, and called for a judgment to be made about the conduct of the trash haulers. The political firestorm fire·storm n. 1. A fire of great size and intensity that generates and is fed by strong inrushing winds from all sides: the firestorm that leveled Hiroshima after the atomic blast. 2. erupted earlier this year when Mayor Laurene Weste argued stridently stri·dent adj. Loud, harsh, grating, or shrill; discordant. See Synonyms at loud, vociferous. [Latin str that residents paid too much for trash collection. The lucrative, $15 million contracts should have been awarded after a competitive bidding Competitive bidding A securities offering process in which securities firms submit competing bids to the issuer for the securities the issuer wishes to sell. competitive bidding 1. process, Weste said. In March, the City Council, after a 4-1 vote, approved a new 10-year deal with Blue Barrel and Atlas. In May, an effort led by Weste to oust oust tr.v. oust·ed, oust·ing, ousts 1. To eject from a position or place; force out: "the American Revolution, which ousted the English" Virginia S. Eifert. City Manager George Caravalho failed after tensions over the trash contracts boiled over. The council members unanimously expressed support for the administrator, and ordered the audit in order to clear up any unresolved questions about the trash contracts or service. |
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