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Cross-posted from Patrick Mahoney’s garbaginati.org, this post gives a lot more background on Huntington Beach’s controversial Rainbow Disposal and its hostile relationship with the Oak View neighborhood and Ocean View School District. This one should stir up a hornet’s nest. Slightly edited by Vern:
Sin of the City
Back in December of 2008, Rainbow Disposal’s local rival, CR&R, got a lovely Christmas present when a lawsuit between the two companies was settled. Rainbow, apparently confused by assuming that having Huntington Beach by the balls gave them the divine right to have everyone by the balls, sued CR&R after the latter received the Newport Beach trash contract, arguing that CR&R had illegally set their bid below their actual cost. CR&R filled a cross action, claiming that Rainbow actually owed them money for a joint venture project they shared in Midway City.
In the end, CR&R prevailed. They were awarded $3.7 million in profits that were essentially stolen from them by Rainbow between 2004 and 2009, and then received $2.3 million in interest on top. And CR&R still picks up the trash in Newport Beach.
Fast forward to early 2015, and guess what? CR&R sued Rainbow again – for. the. very. same. thing. Seriously, CR&R is apparently still not getting paid their fair share, despite having an agreement that is clearly enforceable after Rainbow was previously caught with its hand in the cookie jar. We ask you all, how the hell does this shit happen?
Rainbow is a joke. Actually, it’s a bad joke. There is so much evidence floating around – both circumstantial and real – that speaks towards Rainbow’s unwillingness to be a good corporation. In the past 10 years, they’ve been caught stealing, broken countless promises, bullshitted, bullied and bought their way to get to where they wanted to go and used the legal system as a weapon to oppress. In the meantime, they sold their company to Republic Services for $112 million, but quickly got caught up in seller’s remorse when they realized that they still had to take responsibility for any messes they had created by putting $16.8 million of the selling price into escrow pending litigation. So what did they do? They started taking out their frustration on the Oak View Community.
But this bad joke gets even worse. Despite all this shadiness, The Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce somehow decided that it made sense to make Jeff Snow, Rainbow’s senior municipal service manager, Huntington Beach’s 2015 Businessman of the Year. Apparently the Huntington Beach civic cabal is so enamored by the local trash guy that they see it fit to honor him despite the fact that his company steals money and treats its neighbors like crap. They happily jump over social dollars to get to real dimes. Because, who cares about Oak View anyway? They’re not going to do anything about it, right?
WRONG. Oak View Comunidad is going kick Rainbow’s bitch ass to the curb. Because enough is enough. Rainbow could have thwarted this issue years ago by keeping up with proper physical plant infrastructure improvements and practicing good stakeholder relations. But they didn’t and instead chose to buy almost every local politician for a $540 campaign contribution. Rainbow is also allowing a psychopath and two petty criminals to control a narrative on their behalf on social media.
And it’s not even a narrative refuting the material claims made by anti-Rainbow activists. Instead, they are demonizing the people who dare to speak up – Ocean View School District President Gina Clayton Tarvin, the leadership of the Oak View Comunidad, and last but not least, this very writer who among other offenses has the audacity to move freely around the country while maintaining ownership of real estate in Huntington Beach. It’s overplayed, ineffective negative campaigning at its best. Even better, it’s based on lies, total avoidance of relevant talking-points and the psychotic one-sided ramblings of Chris Epting. This, friends, is an absolute public relations disaster for Rainbow.
But the absolute frosting on the cake is that somebody has been trying to hack into garbaginati.org. Who around these parts displays the requisite amount of obsessive behavior to try and do this?
So whether it’s taking air quality testing into their own hands or never letting up on community activism, Oak View Comunidad is going to show Rainbow what happens when you overplay a really bad hand of cards. Meanwhile, we are preparing to out every two-bit local politician wannabe who has taken money from Rainbow. That way, we all know who needs to be run out of town when the time comes.
We have spoken.
Brilliant!