NEWS ANALYSIS : Officials Think Something Stinks in Garbage Gambit : Politics: Hauler’s maneuvering prompts suspicions of possible connection to upcoming Gypsum Canyon vote.

SANTA ANA —  Did a behind-the-scenes political maneuver intended to thwart creation of a Gypsum Canyon jail and landfill spark the unusual garbage crisis of the past week?

Around the county’s Hall of Administration, in the offices of local waste haulers and at several city halls, observers are convinced that it did. And though the principals deny it, a key official in Anaheim--the city that has led the opposition to the canyon jail--says he encouraged the garbage company to take the action that sparked the controversy.

The issue erupted suddenly last week after officials learned that Anaheim Disposal, one of Orange County’s largest waste haulers, had begun sending most of the 2,500 tons of garbage it collects every day to a private landfill in West Covina. County officials, who were caught off guard, warned that if Anaheim Disposal did not return, it would cost the county $12 million in lost fees at the Olinda dump near Brea.

Anaheim Disposal’s move also would have decreased the pressure on Orange County’s landfills. That would dampen, even eliminate, the incentive for the Board of Supervisors to put a new landfill in Gypsum Canyon, where a majority of the board hopes to build a jail in conjunction with the dump project. And a vote on whether to create the Gypsum Canyon landfill, observers note pointedly, is expected late next month.

“At the risk of being paranoid, the timing is very curious,” Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said. “Is this part of a strategy to deal with Gypsum Canyon?. . . . I think that’s hitting the nail on the head.”

Wieder, who did not name any names, was not alone in voicing suspicions.

La Habra City Manager Lee Risner, chairman of the finance committee of the county’s Integrated Waste Management Commission, said he too suspects that the Gypsum Canyon issue helped propel Anaheim Disposal’s move.

“I suspect that’s the case,” he said. “We have the (North Orange County landfill study) coming up now, and that makes me suspect that the two issues were related. A lot of people certainly are talking about it.”

Most of the nearly two dozen people interviewed echoed those sentiments, in many cases suggesting that Anaheim Disposal was aiding Gypsum Canyon opponents, most notably Anaheim officials and County Supervisor Don R. Roth. Roth is a former Anaheim mayor who received $6,300 in political contributions from Anaheim Disposal officers and affiliates when he successfully ran for his board seat in 1986.

Roth, the only supervisor to publicly defend Anaheim Disposal’s right to take its business elsewhere, vehemently denied that the garbage issue and Gypsum Canyon were related.

“Anybody that makes a remark that this is part of Gypsum Canyon should be ashamed of themselves,” Roth said. “I’m incensed that anybody would even say that, or even suggest that I was involved.”

Vincent Taormina, chief executive officer of Anaheim Disposal, said the company had not consulted with Roth before making its move. But he acknowledged that Anaheim officials had urged him to take the deal with the BKK landfill in West Covina.

Taormina said he understood why people would raise the possibility of a connection betweenGypsum Canyon and the garbage controversy. But he added that he did not believe they were related.

“Not to my knowledge,” he said.

Could they have been related without Taormina knowing about it? “To my knowledge, they could not have been connected without my knowledge,” he answered.

Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez, another Gypsum Canyon opponent who helped negotiate the end to last week’s garbage controversy, said he “never picked up one single ounce” of suggestion that the issue was connected to Roth or the Gypsum Canyon landfill proposal.

The move by Anaheim Disposal, which company officials sought to characterize as merely part of a cost-cutting study, touched off a political brush fire in Orange County last week. Confronted with the potential loss of millions of dollars during a tight budget time, county supervisors grudgingly found themselves having to contemplate the unimaginable: inviting Los Angeles County waste haulers to bring their garbage and dump it here so that Orange County could balance its books.

That proposal--along with the equally controversial suggestion that the supervisors raise gate fees for other north Orange County cities--was shelved after Anaheim Disposal reversed field Thursday and agreed to return its business to the Olinda landfill by Sept. 1.

But the suddenness with which the issue broke and its proximity to the upcoming Gypsum Canyon vote fueled suspicions, not only among some city and county leaders, but also in the garbage industry.

“It’s a political ploy,” said Bill Gallio, vice president of MG Disposal in Fullerton. “A blind man could read that in the newspaper.”

Bolstering that view, some observers said, was the behind-the-scenes role that one Anaheim official acknowledged having played in encouraging Anaheim Disposal to make the controversial move.

“I told Anaheim Disposal some time ago that if you can find a better deal somewhere else, go take it,” said John Roche, Anaheim’s director of maintenance, who was reached last week vacationing in Idaho.

Roche denied that his advice was related to Gypsum Canyon, but he said he had urged the company to look elsewhere in order to force the county to negotiate a lower dumping rate at the Olinda landfill.

“I’m trying to send a message to the county,” Roche said. “They’re ignoring the cities, and this gives us some negotiating power.”

Roche conceded that several members of the Board of Supervisors were “upset, but we’re all in this to protect our constituents, and my constituents are the residents of the city of Anaheim.”

Told of Roche’s comments, Supervisor Thomas F. Riley was outraged.

“That’s even more shocking to me than the company’s actions,” Riley said. “How could somebody who is working in government suggest such a thing? The people of Orange County are the ones who would have paid for this.”

Other county officials were also perturbed by Anaheim’s role in encouraging the trash hauler to send its waste to BKK. And to some, Roth’s support for the move struck a suspicious chord.

Roth has long enjoyed a friendly relationship with chief executives of Anaheim Disposal, William and Vincent Taormina. Roth received a spate of donations from William Taormina and Taormina Industries when he ran in a closely contested supervisorial contest in 1986, when he was mayor of Anaheim.

Although all five supervisors have received some contributions from the Taormina brothers or their companies, Roth has gotten more than any of his colleagues, and the contributions in late 1985 and 1986 came during a tense battle for the vacant 4th District seat. Roth edged out Orange Mayor James Beam in a close runoff.

Roth said he had supported Anaheim Disposal’s decision to haul its trash out of the county not because of its political contributions, but because he welcomed an idea that would reduce the flow of garbage into Orange County’s landfills.

“They’re helping us to meet 939,” he said in reference to AB 939, a state law which requires local governments to reduce the amount of garbage entering landfills by 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000. “That’s what we need. To me, this whole thing is silly.”

But Frank R. Bowerman, the director and chief engineer of the county’s Integrated Waste Management Department, said letting Anaheim Disposal go to West Covina would not have helped Orange County meet the state requirements for garbage reduction.

“We don’t get credit for diverting” garbage to other counties, Bowerman said. “Reduction is producing less waste, not moving it around.”

By week’s end, Anaheim Disposal had decided to call off its shipments to BKK and bring its business back to Olinda by Sept. 1. County officials, who had leaned hard on the company for days, were thrilled.

Many, however, still speculated about the political implications of the company’s action and vowed to revamp the county waste management system to keep such an incident from ever recurring.

Wieder, for instance, lamented that the county should “never, never have been this vulnerable.” She was joined by Vasquez and Riley in calling for a new system that would bind waste haulers to bringing a specified amount of garbage to the county landfills, giving the county a guarantee of revenue and locking in the companies.

“We just can’t let something like this happen again,” Riley said. “That’s the important thing.”

Vasquez, who stressed that county officials need to depend on a predictable source of landfill revenue, agreed.

“You build a system, you plan a system, you invest in a system,” he said. “Then, one company can come along and jeopardize that whole system. . . .”

Times staff writer Mark Landsbaum contributed to this report.