City Leaders Lob Allegations of Dishonesty Over Trash Contract

Declaring settlement negotiations a failure, the Los Alamitos City Council on Monday voted to move toward a new trash contract and a new law governing how contracts are awarded.

The decision comes in response to a lawsuit alleging that the city violated its own code in giving the $24.5 million trash contract to Consolidated Disposal Services, a company that didn’t have the lowest bid for the job. While the new ordinance and decision to pursue a new contract brings the city into compliance , it hardly puts the matter to rest. The city remains embroiled in legal appeals, and council remains deeply divided on the issue.

In Monday’s 3-2 decision, city leaders on both sides accused one another of playing politics with the trash contract and of misleading the voters.

“We shouldn’t be trying to trick you with a contract that costs $6.5 million more than you should be paying,” said City Councilwoman Gerri Graham-Mejia. “I would recommend to the people of Los Alamitos: don’t trust the politicians up here with all the power…”

Graham-Mejia criticized the new contract policy approved by the council for lacking the safeguards to make sure that the city leaders can’t award lucrative contracts randomly or in exchange for political favors. The city’s previous code required the City Council to keep bids in sealed envelops to be opened in public, and it required the city to award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder, she said. The city’s failure to do so is the reason it lost the lawsuit filed by residents calling themselves Citizens for a Fair Trash Contract, she said.

The new code approved on Monday is much more liberal in granting the City Council discretion to grant contracts according to a number of factors as opposed to automatically granting contracts to the lowest responsible bidder.

City Councilwoman Marilynn Poe, who voted with Mayor Troy Edgar and Councilman Kenneth Stephens in favor of the new ordinance, scoffed at Graham-Mejia’s accusations.

“This idea that there were shell games and behind closed-door dealings is just foolish. I think we all know that this was political,” she said. “This is like beating a dead horse. It’s really quite a shame. We have spent on awful lot of time on this, and there has been a lot of damage to our community, I feel.”

City Councilman Kenneth Stephens accused his political opponents misleading voters about the contract, noting that residents in Los Alamitos have the second lowest trash rates in the county.

Even as the city establishes a new contract procedure, paving the way for the council to approve a new contract or reaffirm the existing one, legal ramifications from the lawsuit still loom. The city remains locked in a pair of . The city is appealing a court ruling that nullifies the current contract, and the plaintiffs are appealing the court’s decision to throw out allegations of corruption against the council majority. Art DeBolt, one of two plaintiffs in the case, offered to settle out of court if the city would drop its appeal, approve a new trash contact and pay roughly $300,000 in legal fees.

However, the council rejected the offer, ensuring that the appeals process will continue.