SIGN SPARKS ANGER : `GERMANS ONLY' POSTING IN SOUTH CENTRAL DRAWS FIRE.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

The manager of a German-owned factory in South Central Los Angeles said she was only joking when she posted a sign facing the street that read ``Parking for Germans Only, All Others Will Be Towed.''

But City Councilwoman Rita Walters said she was outraged by the sign posted on the front of a factory in a neighborhood where many African-Americans are unemployed.

What especially angered her was that the company, Plastopan North America Inc., makes city trash containers under a city contract that has been worth $13 million in the last two years.

``The posting of such a sign displays an extreme lack of awareness and sensitivity,'' Walters wrote in a letter Friday to Plastopan plant manager Cathy Bump.

``As the elected representative of the area, I cannot sit idly by and allow such conduct to go unnoticed. I suggest that you remove the sign TODAY!''

Walters said in an interview that posting such a sign in a community ``that is totally minority'' is ``tantamount to posting a whites only'' sign.

Bump took down the sign Friday within five minutes of receiving Walters' letter, saying the ``Germans Only'' sign was an attempt at humor and not indicative of the firm's employment practices.

``I take full responsibility for the sign,'' Bump said. ``I'm half-German, and I like my reserved space. It was probably insensitive, but it was intended with a sense of humor.''

A native of Southern California, Bump said she bought the sign on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, in a shop that sold similar signs for other nationalities. She acknowledged that such signs are usually hung inside homes as a joke and not in such a public place.

The official-looking sign faced the city street and includes arrows pointing in both directions, which appeared to indicate the ``Germans Only'' rule applied to all 10 parking spaces in front of the building.

However, Bump said the sign was hung over one spot which is reserved for herself.

The sign controversy is only part of a brewing dispute between Plastopan and city officials over the handling of a contract awarded by the city two years ago to make 480,000 trash containers for distribution by the city to Los Angeles residents.

Sanitation Bureau Chief Del Biagi said the contract was hailed at the time it was awarded by the Public Works Board as an example of how to bring businesses to town.

However, the business arrangement between Plastopan North America and the city of Los Angeles has soured amid charges by each party that the other has failed to live up to its side of the bargain.

Biagi said Plastopan won the contract after receiving a bid preference granted because the firm would be located in an economically distressed part of the city.

Implied in that bid preference decision was that the firm would hire local residents, and there were some requirements for outreach efforts to local residents.

Because the company imported some German workers, Walters was concerned that the offending sign might be an indication that the firm is not hiring local residents as it promised when the city contract was awarded.

Walters said in the letter she has asked the City Attorney's Office to investigate whether the company has lived up to contractual obligations to reach out to local residents with jobs.

Bump said the contract does not require local hiring.

``I'm sure there was an understanding that there would be local hiring, but as a practical matter, there was no requirement,'' she said.

Bump said a company manager and two engineers did come from Germany last year to help install German-made injection-mold machines that make the plastic containers. The three Germans joined Bump, who had come from San Francisco, in living in the plant while the machines were installed.

``There are very few people in Los Angeles, if any, who would be qualified to do the job those engineers did,'' Bump said.

However, she said all of the German nationals left early this year, and the work force since then has been made up of local residents.

``The great, great majority of our employees are from the immediate vicinity,'' she said of a distressed area on East 59th Street near the corner of Slauson and Avalon avenues.

As for outreach, Bump said classified ads were not necessary because the plant was flooded with job applications from local residents from the time it began renovating the old industrial building in which it is located.

At one point, Plastopan employed 40 people in the factory, turning out 7,000 trash containers a week.

But the company has had to fire all but 12 workers, because the city has cut back on orders and is only asking for 1,000 containers a month now, Bump said.

It now appears the city will only need three-quarters of the 480,000 containers called for in the contract.

The city overestimated demand for the containers, which are provided free to residents as part of the city's recycling and trash-reduction programs. Although extra containers were initially free, the City Council recently voted to charge a fee for residents who want extra containers beyond what the city provides for free.

The extra-container fee led to many residents returning extra containers they already had, further reducing the demand for new ones to be manufactured, said Biagi.

``The number of containers that need to be produced are way down,'' Biagi said.

It is the city's fault that more local jobs are not being provided by the company, because the city hasn't made good on its promise to buy 480,000 containers, Bump charged.

``We invested millions of dollars in bringing the machines here,'' she said. ``It was a great shock to us that the city classified us along with any other contractor and didn't honor their side.''

Biagi said the contract says the city may buy 480,000 containers but added, ``We made no guarantees.''

The dispute has caused attorneys from both sides to get involved but no litigation has occurred yet.

Bump said the city should not have awarded a contract with such uncertainties as part of a program to encourage new companies to locate in the city, because the costs of locating require the entire order to be filled.

``This is not a contract that should be used to bring companies here,'' Bump said, adding that her firm is scrambling to get contracts with other customers.

She was further angered that the city is about to seek bids on a contract for additional containers but that the container design has been changed, making it difficult, if not impossible, for Plastopan to compete.

Noting that the contract process for containers involved heavy-duty lobbying by her competitors, Bump said she considered it ``a slap in the face'' that Plastopan, as the existing contractor, was overlooked when the new design was done.

Biagi said Plastopan has provided a product with ``very good quality,'' but said such disagreements occur sometimes. ``It's kind of like a marriage,'' Biagi said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) A street-facing sign says that parking is for Germans only.

(2 -- color) This sign has replaced the ``Germans only'' posting.

Andy Holzman/Special to the Daily News