Athens Services Contract Leads To Lawsuit For Bribery ... Plus: Mountain Views News "Correction" Never Issued

It's a dirty business

Mod: A news site called Western Journalism has an interesting article about up about Athens Services, the company that collects trash in Sierra Madre. The article speculates about Athens landfill practices, but then quickly shifts into the bribery story.

To Recycle Or Not To Recycle? Mixed Messages In California - As California looks to initiate a “no waste” policy, a look at the statistics of landfills in and around the San Bernadino area shows that many have either seriously slowed their garbage intake for burial or only increased it slightly. That is, all except the landfills operated by Athens Services, all of which seem to have exceedingly high growth in landfill use. Now some residents are worrying that, unlike the other waste disposal companies, the Athens landfills are burying items that could otherwise be recycled in accordance with state and local laws.

At the same time this is happening, some California counties are aiming at what they call a ”no waste” policy, meaning that practically all garbage will be recycled some way or another. Despite this far-fetched concept and the unlikelihood of reaching such a goal, most of the state is still slowly edging toward less and less use of landfills.

Certainly most residents don’t think about garbage after it’s tossed; but, with large tax dollars being spent on waste disposal, residents across the country should look at their service providers.


Mod: The rest of the Western Journalim article can be linked to here. The bribery lawsuit is also detailed in the following San Gabriel Tribune article. It can be found in its entirety by clicking here. This article does conflict with WJ a bit about who is getting sued, however.
Mod: Maybe Athens Services just likes to give people things. And so you know, a similar "evergreen" contract was signed with Athens by Sierra Madre a few years back. We have no indication that anyone at City Hall was taken out to dinner afterwards, however.

Mountain Views News "Correction" Never Runs

Mod: The following e-blast went out from Preserve Sierra Madre on July 26:

Mod: For the record, the Mountain Views News did not run this correction as promised to Preserve Sierra Madre. However, all is not lost. Pasadena's free mulch program did make that edition. 

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