Sun Valley Businesses mount PR push to boost their image.

Business owners in Sun Valley, including one of its largest employers, are mobilizing to put a fresh face on perceptions that their operations, largely industrial, are a blight on the community and deterring efforts to improve the quality of life for its residents.

Representatives from Waste Management Inc., which operates the widely criticized Bradley Landfill, Vulcan Materials Company and others, as well as the Sun Valley Chamber of Commerce, have begun holding meetings--three so far--to discuss how to boost their image and show the community that they are just as interested in making the area a better place to work and live.

"We are trying to set forth our position with regard to what we are doing here to make improvements," said Arthur Sweet, head of the chamber's government affairs committee and owner of Van Nuys-based A&E Development Co. Inc.

The mobilization comes as city officials consider stepping up regulations to address residents' concerns about chemical pollution coming from the area's heavily industrialized core.

City Councilman Tony Cardenas introduced a motion Nov. 18 to create an "Environmental Justice Improvement Area" for Sun Valley, which would give the city wider authority to enforce environmental regulations and more closely monitor the permitting process for businesses moving into the area, especially those companies handling hazardous waste materials.

While on its face the motion seems like a crack down, representatives from the Sun Valley business community say it actually represents a golden opportunity for them to demonstrate that, despite perceptions to the contrary, they aim to be good corporate neighbors.

What's more, Cardenas' motion also calls for creating the area's first business improvement district, which, if established, would allow them to collectively and more efficiently address issues of blight something they say they have long pushed for, but with little success.

"This is absolutely a positive," said David De Pinto, of De Pinto Morales Communications, Inc. De Pinto's firm represents Waste Management, Inc., which has been embroiled in a bitter rift with a local community groups who are pushing for closure of the Bradley Landfill. "We are a business community who is no longer going to stick its head in the sand. We are willing to undergo the scrutiny and willing to make the transition to being more transparent."

Heavy opposition to Waste Management's plans to heighten the landfill by roughly 43 feet, said De Pinto, have spurred wider criticism of Sun Valley's industrial and commercial sector as a whole. So it's no longer just Waste Management feeling the heat.

The Sun Valley Chamber is also sponsoring a survey of local businesses that it intends to use to show the economic impact of industry on the community, including the number of jobs provided as well as civic and charitable involvement.

The chamber has also asked the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley to produce a final report once the data is compiled, which it has agreed to do.

"We are sponsoring this because we want to make sure that the area that Councilman Cardenas has outlined in his motion is reviewed, and that the opposition groups recognize what we bring to the table," said Sweet.

Doug Corcoran, director of operations for the Los Angeles area for Waste Management, said the business community is joining forces to show that it, too, is in favor of improving the quality of life in the community.

"We have had several meetings to discuss the heightened awareness of the impacts of the industrial users and the feelings that are out there of the local residents, many of whom are our employees, about wanting to make this a better place to live," said Corcoran.

Mayor James Hahn opposes a Bradley expansion, however Cardenas has not taken a position. He inherited leadership of the Bradley Landfill Community Advisory Council, from his predecessor, former City Councilwoman, Ruth Galauter. He plans to, in his words, "let that forum vet out what the real issues are.

"What I'm trying to do with this motion is present a blueprint so that the businesses and heavy industrial companies can apply themselves," said Cardenas. "I know that a lot of them do have a positive impact on the community and this will take that same good will and put it into a format that's reasonable and readable and will allow the city to incorporate standards."

Corcoran agreed. He said shining a brighter light on what businesses are doing to be better citizens could only help bridge the divide between an entrenched industrial and commercial core, and a growing residential area.

"We want to continue to do business in the area," said Corcoran. "We recognize the world is changing. It's a new day for all of us and I think we need to open our eyes to it."

In fact, Waste Management is actually proposing to build a Materials Recycling Facility at Bradley, which would allow the company to essentially recycle more waste and bury less.

The problem, however, is that environmental groups in the area want that to be an enclosed facility, and Waste is proposing a three-sided one. Unless the company agrees to make changes to those plans, meetings and reports won't mean a thing to Ellen Mackey.

"They say they are interested in quality of life issues in Sun Valley, but we've seen absolutely no evidence of that," said Mackey, an ecologist, Sun Valley homeowner and member of the East Valley Coalition, the group spearheading the drive to shut Bradley down. "They are mobilizing because they want to keep everything beneath the surface."