Western Waste Industries

Charging that a trash hauler has a "rap sheet" of corruption and mismanagement, Thousand Oaks city officials urged a bankruptcy judge to block the transfer of city trash hauling contracts to Torrance-based Western Waste Industries. "Western Waste has notoriously violated health and solid waste laws, corrupted public officials, and has mismanaged its business to the tune of astronomical fines and landing key executives and managers in jail or on probation," Assistant City Atty.

Western Waste Industries, the biggest municipal garbage contractor in Southern California, is the target of a federal political corruption probe, its parent company admitted Tuesday. In a disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission, USA Waste Services of Houston also revealed that FBI agents have served subpoenas for Western Waste documents dating back to 1990.

With allegations of bribes swirling around a Torrance-based company that is trying to take over the operation of Ventura County's second-largest waste hauler, local government officials said they want a thorough look into the company's business practices.

Determined to keep a company linked to political corruption out of Thousand Oaks, city officials say they will ask a judge to reconsider last week's decision to transfer the city's trash-hauling contracts to Western Waste Industries. City Atty. Mark Sellers said Wednesday he believes that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robin Riblet misinterpreted an earlier court case in her ruling allowing the transfer.

The South Gate City Council has ordered another month of negotiations with its trash hauler in an effort to lower collection rates. Meetings between the city staff and representatives of Western Waste Industries have succeeded in knocking 75 cents off the basic monthly rate, but that failed to satisfy hundreds of angry residents who packed City Hall for last week's council meeting.

Trash hauler Western Waste Industries scored a clean sweep at Tuesday's Carson City Council meeting, winning a series of contracts and extensions that grant the firm exclusive pickup of all of Carson's trash through 1999. Western Waste obtained the council's approval on a much-coveted exclusive agreement for commercial-industrial trash hauling, an extension of a residential trash pickup agreement and concessions in administrative fees the firm will pay the city.

A year ago, GI Industries in Simi Valley had good news to report: Republic Waste Industries in Houston had tentatively agreed to buy GI for $3.50 a share, or a total of $15 million, in Republic Waste stock. For Republic Waste--a company twice GI's size--the purchase of GI was supposed to give it a beachhead in the Southern California waste-disposal market, because GI is the largest hauler of residential trash in eastern Ventura County with nearly 50,000 customers.

Three weeks after a new automated trash collection and recycling system got under way in South Gate, the city and the trash company are negotiating a reduction in rates, which were attacked by residents during an emotional four-hour public hearing last week. Charges went up 34% on May 4 when Western Waste Industries, which has been South Gate's exclusive residential trash hauler for 26 years, began collecting trash and recyclable materials under a new franchise agreement that runs through 1998.

The extortion trial of former Compton Councilwoman Patricia Moore is getting lots of scrutiny these days at the corporate law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton. A paralegal from the firm has been assigned to monitor the proceedings for any mention of a very important client--Western Waste Industries, the largest garbage hauler in Southern California. At stake for the company are millions of dollars in revenues, as well as its continued dominance in the region.

Western Waste Industries Inc., Gardena, named Zia Qureshi vice president of the newly created Waste Disposal Services Group.

For the second time in as many months, the City Council has agreed to let another company pick up Moorpark's trash. The council voted unanimously Wednesday night to let G.I. Rubbish of Simi Valley, which currently has an exclusive contract to collect garbage in the city, transfer that contract to a firm that is trying to buy G.I. The council had reached a similar agreement in September, when it voted to transfer the G.I. contract to U.S.A. Waste Services of Dallas as part of G.I.'

Concerned that they don't know who exactly would collect Moorpark's trash, City Council members are rethinking their decision to transfer the city's exclusive garbage-hauling contract. The council voted to let G.I. Industries--which collects trash in Moorpark, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and parts of the unincorporated county--transfer its contract to U.S.A. Waste Services, a Dallas-based firm hoping to buy G.I. The sale of G.I. is part of the company's bankruptcy reorganization.

Stung by federal grand jury subpoenas for their financial and office records, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to postpone action on a controversial landfill expansion proposal sought by Western Waste Industries, one of Southern California's biggest refuse companies and the focus of an FBI political corruption probe.

Charging that a trash hauler has a "rap sheet" of corruption and mismanagement, Thousand Oaks city officials urged a bankruptcy judge to block the transfer of city trash hauling contracts to Torrance-based Western Waste Industries. "Western Waste has notoriously violated health and solid waste laws, corrupted public officials, and has mismanaged its business to the tune of astronomical fines and landing key executives and managers in jail or on probation," Assistant City Atty.

FBI agents served subpoenas Wednesday for the records of two more members of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors in an investigation of possible political corruption by Western Waste Industries, the largest refuse hauler in Southern California. Supervisors John Tavaglione and Tom Mullen were directed to turn over all personal or office records relating to Western Waste and its El Sobrante landfill near Corona.

Former Compton Councilwoman Patricia Moore confessed to federal agents in 1994 that she received monthly bribe payments from Western Waste Industries, the city's commercial waste contractor, and that the company's top two executives were aware of the payoffs, a federal jury was told Thursday.

Blue Barrel Disposal Co., a Santa Clarita waste collection company, has been acquired by Western Waste Industries, a solid waste management concern based in Los Angeles. Terms of the cash and stock deal were not disclosed. Blue Barrel has annual revenues of more than $5.5 million, Western Waste said.

Shareholders of Western Waste Industries may sell from time to time up to 120,000 common shares at an estimated $19 each or $2.28 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Patricia Moore's longtime campaign manager testified Tuesday that he laundered payoffs to her from backers of a card casino in Compton, and once delivered $10,000 in cash to her from the city's commercial waste hauler. "I was used, I feel betrayed," Basil Kimbrew told a federal court jury in the former Compton councilwoman's extortion trial. Moore is accused of extorting $12,334 from Compton Entertainment Inc.