Rubbish Collection

Los Angeles has put some teeth in an ordinance that made it illegal to steal bottles, cans and other items from the city's curbside recycling bins. The City Council voted Wednesday to spend $64,000 to step up enforcement of the city's anti-scavenging ordinance, earmarking $15,000 for a police crackdown in the West San Fernando Valley and setting aside $49,000 for a possible expansion of the police patrols citywide.

The City Council approved Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's latest trash fee hike Tuesday. The revenue will be used to help balance the city's budget and to continue the mayor's effort to hire 1,000 new police officers. For homeowners, the monthly trash fee will increase to $36.32 from $26, and for residents of apartments that have four or fewer units, it will climb to $24.33 from $17.16. The council voted 13 to 1 in favor of the fee hike, with Councilman Dennis Zine voting in opposition.

Folks who know the civic-minded Hambarian family wonder how one of the clan's sons seemingly wandered so far astray, landing in an Orange County courtroom, accused of swindling millions of dollars from his hometown. Jeffrey Hambarian grew up in Orange, a small town with conservative values, his family steeped in an old-fashioned work ethic. His father, Sam, began collecting the city's garbage in the 1950s, tooling around in a road-weary pickup that spoke to his thriftiness.

The Los Angeles City Council gave preliminary approval Tuesday to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's latest trash fee hike, which was used to balance the city's budget earlier this year. The proposal would increase the monthly trash fee for homeowners to $36.32 from $26 and for residents of apartments that have four or fewer units to $24.33 from $17.16. The council voted 11 to 1 in favor of the fee hike, with Councilman Dennis Zine opposed.

City officials say they have begun taking a more aggressive approach to collecting delinquent bills.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to increase rubbish collection fees in unincorporated areas of the county by about 13% for most homeowners and 10% for commercial users. At present, rubbish collection rates range from $6.38 to $7.17 per month for residences in unincorporated Orange County. In the communities of Laguna Niguel, El Toro, Dana Point and Lake Forest, the fee will increase from $6.90 to $7.80 per month, effective Jan. 1.

It is penal service hiding behind coy euphemisms. Work release. Celebrity diversion. Special programs. They are, in essence, chain gangs without shackles. "I sentence a lot of people to work with Caltrans," said a Los Angeles municipal court commissioner. "Because it is hard work that in the heat of summer becomes hard labor."

Frank J. Matula Jr., secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 396 of Los Angeles and one of the highest paid Teamsters officers in the nation, is dead. His death last Tuesday was reported in an announcement received from the union's Washington headquarters Monday. Matula was 76 and died at his home in Palm Springs after a long battle with cancer. At one time he was one of three national trustees of the union.

Compton has filed a $10-million lawsuit against a rubbish collection company, claiming that Murcole Disposal's contract with the city was void because former Mayor Walter R. Tucker III had a "financial interest" in the firm. The suit filed in Superior Court draws upon testimony that Murcole officials delivered during Tucker's trial last year on federal charges of bribery and tax evasion. Tucker, a former congressman, was convicted in December and is serving a 27-month prison sentence.

The city should impose a garbage collection fee on residents, tax drivers who use commercial parking lots and spend $1.2 billion to fix decaying streets, a task force of Los Angeles business leaders urged Mayor Tom Bradley on Thursday.

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 the wake of a Times report that illegal trash dumping is plaguing some of Los Angeles' poorest neighborhoods, state officials announced Tuesday that they would give the city a $500,000 grant to help crack down on violators in the hardest-hit areas. The grant, from the California Integrated Waste Management Board, will help fund a special enforcement zone in South Los Angeles, where about half of the illegally dumped refuse in the city is discarded.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered a comprehensive report Monday to find out why illegally dumped refuse has been allowed to sit for weeks in alleys in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. "The mayor's view is that people should not have to wait for weeks to have trash picked up," said Gil Duran, a spokesman for Villaraigosa, who was traveling in Israel.

The smell, said Carmela Di Nardo, undulates sickeningly, a cross between rotten eggs, burned skin and dead animals. You try not to breathe very deeply. You keep your children inside. "It smells worse than sewage," Di Nardo said. "This is shameful. " Here in Pianura, in nearby Naples and in more than a dozen other southern cities and towns, an estimated 100,000 tons of uncollected trash is rotting on the sides of roads and at apartment block doorsteps, poisoning the air, embarrassing the Italian government and empowering the local Mafia.

More than 450 truck drivers, welders and mechanics chanted "yes we can" and "we are united" early Friday as they went on strike against Waste Management facilities in Compton, Long Beach and Sun Valley. The workers with Teamsters Local 396 walked off the job about 3 a.m., following a vote earlier in the week to reject the company's latest contract offer, and leaving at least 225,000 residents without service.

An army of volunteers hunting for litter across Los Angeles County collected nearly 80,000 pounds of trash Saturday, officials said. The effort was part of California Coastal Cleanup Day, held annually since 1985. But the cleanup doesn't happen just at the beach anymore: Officials expanded efforts inland.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigators served search warrants on a small casino in Huntington Park this week, seizing records and forcing the closure of the club for four hours, officials said Thursday. The management of the Huntington Park Casino is the subject of a 10-month investigation, said Deputy George Ducoulombier. Search warrants were also served on three other locations, but records detailing which documents were confiscated were unavailable Thursday.

Residents who want to throw away large objects and other junk that cannot be picked up on regular trash days will be able to drop it off on Saturday in large bins at City Hall or five city parks.

It was Christmas in July last week for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who received some good news: Major crime this year was again down in the city. This is the kind of thing all politicians pray for: to be in office when crime drops. It's also the kind of thing politicians build campaigns around.

Twenty days without garbage pickup has taught Walter Smith an odiferous lesson about modern culture: Today's throwaway society produces a heck of a lot of trash. "That's three weeks right there," he says, pointing to a reeking line of six trash containers and an overflow of plastic bags in front of his home. "Pretty soon the rats will be here. We're thinking about getting a cat." Waste Management Inc.