Trash Is Piling Up All Over Hawaiian Gardens With Plenty of Blame to Go Around

Trash at a condominium complex in Hawaiian Gardens, residents said there are eight more bins at the complex that are overflowing.

BY BRIAN HEWS

While rotting trash is accumulating in many parts of Hawaiian Gardens, Mayor Myra Maravilla and the City Council will finally conduct a hearing, waiting an entire week, and allowing the trash to accumulate even more, to once again discuss terminating CWS’ contract.

Under the Ralph M. Brown Act, Maravilla and the City Council could have sent out a notice and held a meeting within two days to address the situation.

“Poor leadership, no foresight on the situation, typical of this City Council,” former Hawaiian Gardens Mayor Rey Rodriguez told HMG-LCCN.

The staff report included in last week’s meeting presented clear evidence that CWS was in violation of its contract with the City, but Mayor Maravilla and the Council were apparently afraid to pull the termination trigger, leaving residents driving by stinky piles of trash for the foreseeable future.

The voluminous staff report included several default letters, which, under California’s Public Resource Code Section 49000, starts the clock on termination.

City staff even went the extra step and attempted to work with CWS to cure the breaches and defaults starting in March of this year, each of which gave CWS steps to resolve the defaults.

In addition to the default notices, the City also attempted to arrange meetings with CWS but CWS did not attend most meetings.

“How much more evidence did they need? We have trash piling up all over the City and they wait a week to meet, shameful. These people go to conventions and spend thousands, hand out contracts to questionable vendors, yet when it comes to the residents of the City, they fail to act.”