Piles of smelly, rotting trash dumped illegally in some of Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods have been allowed to sit for weeks because dumping has increased: The number of complaints has doubled in the last year while sanitation staffing has remained stagnant, the city's top public works officials reported Monday.
In a report to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the officials defended the city's refuse-collection efforts but vowed to cut response times to citizen complaints by half -- from an average of 17 days to between seven and 10 days -- and recommended streamlining the city's debris-removal programs by consolidating them under a single bureau.
"It's a complex issue, but we have been doing a fabulous job. Can we be more efficient? Absolutely," said Cynthia Ruiz, president of the city's Board of Public Works, who submitted the report Monday evening with the directors of the city's bureaus of Sanitation and Street Services.
Villaraigosa ordered the study after The Times reported last month that refuse, including dead animals, festered for weeks in some South L.A. alleys and that illegal-dumping arrests by Public Works investigators had dropped from 359 in 2002 to 55 in 2007 and to three so far this year.
The Times reported this week that city records showed that residents in some South L.A. neighborhoods, as well as an aide to the mayor, waited up to two months for refuse to be removed after they alerted the city.
Pockets of Watts, for instance, are hot spots where violators discard everything from household trash to concrete rubble. But none of the 55 arrests by Public Works investigators last year were in those areas, according to city records.
Arrests for illegal dumping declined in the last five years, in part because investigators for the Bureau of Street Services have diverted their attention to illicit street vendors, including those conducting illegal food sales and peddling counterfeit goods, the report said.
"I'm sure there's enough blame to go around, but the issue here is how to move forward and reduce as much of the trash and blight in people's neighborhoods while we crack down on the illegal dumpers," said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes Watts. "If we can make some more arrests, and prosecute some of these illegal dumpers, people will know that we will not tolerate this."
Hahn said officials at the Los Angeles Police Department have told her that officers will crack down on illegal dumpers.
