A locked, bright-yellow file cabinet was reported stolen from the West Marin Sanitary Landfill office early Friday morning.
Client files, as well as accounting, tax, insurance and permit records, were left behind in the office, dump workers said.
Desk drawers and counter cabinets appeared untouched, and a coffee pot had been neatly taken off the stolen filebox, said Linda Briseno, who manages the tiny, one-room office for the dump.
"[The stolen cabinet] was full of receipts, blank checks, and about $4,000 in cash," Briseno said. "It's going to cause a bookkeeping nightmare and a hardship for the dump. We don't have the money to lose."
There was no theft insurance to cover the loss, said dump owner Leroy Martinelli.
"Ever since we took the [house] trailer out, things started to disappear," Martinelli said, explaining that the former trailer residents had provided some security. The trailer housing dump workers had been removed at county insistence.
Nothing seemed to be missing from a cavernous building near the office, where mechanics tools and other hardware were kept unlocked last week.
Surmising that the theft was unrelated to current family and partner disputes, Martinelli said, "It was a job by someone who has stood right in this office, someone who knows where the cash is kept and when [Linda] goes to the bank."
The entrance gate to Point Reyes Station dump was locked, and the office was secured with a padlock on the door, Martinelli said.
The lock was missing from the entrance gate. Boltcutters were used to break the office padlock, which was found on the ground, said Deputy Sheriff Tom Odetto.
"It was probably someone who knows [Martinelli] and knows the landfill operations," Odetto told The Light last week. "They knew exactly where the money was kept and took a chance that no one would be there."