DUMP FOES SHOCKED, THRILLED.Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer GRANADA HILLS - Mary Edwards went to City Hall on Friday expecting to leave disappointed. The longtime Granada Hills resident and dump opponent figured the City Council would take the safe route and extend the contract to send Los Angeles' residential trash to Sunshine Canyon Landfill. So she was shocked - and thrilled - to see her community's adamant lobbying had convinced a crucial number of council members to vote against the contract with Browning-Ferris Industries Browning-Ferris Industries, or "BFI", is a licensed trademark of Allied Waste Industries, a North America waste collection company. Many local units of Allied Waste are still known as BFI in the markets they serve. . ``This one of the few times we really won something. I am so happy. I'm ecstatically happy.'' Edwards and the North Valley Coalition have been fighting Sunshine Canyon Landfill since the late 1980s, when paper and plastic bags hung from tree branches in the local park and clouds of dust blew over from the nearby dump. The group successfully fought to close the original dump in 1991. But the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is the five member governing board of Los Angeles County, California. Members of the board of supervisors are elected by district, the current members as of April 2006 are:
Most recently, a dedicated dozen or so retirees and activists from Granada Hills have focused on ending the city's contract with Sunshine Canyon, thus taking away BFI's single-largest customer. They tried to sway decision makers with letters to council members, meetings with Bureau of Sanitation sanitation: see plumbing; sanitary science. staffers and outreach to neighborhood councils Neighborhood councils are governmental or non-governmental bodies composed of local people who handle neighborhood problems. They can be found in many cities throughout the world. across the city. The group even elicited a specific promise from then mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramon Villaraigosa (born Antonio (Tony) Ramon Villar, Jr. on January 23, 1953) is the mayor of Los Angeles, California. He is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since Cristobal Aguilar in 1872. to oppose the Sunshine contract. He backed away from that promise Thursday, saying the city had no reliable, cost-effective choice but Sunshine Canyon. While the landfill would still operate, coalition President Wayde Hunter argued that the loss of the city's contract could mean fewer trash trucks in the area. He also said the city shouldn't reward BFI BFI - brute force and ignorance for past violations. More importantly, without the safety net of Sunshine Canyon, Hunter and Edwards argue that Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. could finally be forced to come up with a new trash plan. Rick Greenwood, an adjunct professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , concurred that the city might now have the impetus to develop more environmentally sound ways of handling trash. Greenwood served with the North Valley Coalition members on former Mayor James Hahn's Landfill Oversight Committee and he praised the Granada Hills activists for trying to find trash solutions as they fight to close the dump. ``I think they are reasonable people. They know they can't just say something has to be done, make it go away. They're willing to look at alternatives and compromises.'' |
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