Ex-Garbage Contractor Trashes Town in Suit to Get Job Back
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The former garbage hauler for Yorktown is trashing town officials in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that seeks to have its services restored.
AAA Carting and Rubbish Removal launched an Article 78 proceeding Feb. 1 against the Town Board and Competitive Carting, the company that outbid the Buchanan-based AAA Carting and was awarded a five-year contract in October that went into effect in January.
The main thrust of the lawsuit is Yorktown officials allegedly violated New York’s competitive bidding statutes by rejecting AAA as the lowest and only responsible bidder and issuing a contract to Competitive Carting that allegedly was “materially different” than what was put out to bid.
Under the current pact, the town will pay $3.5 million to Competitive Carting in 2023, with an escalating rate rising to $4 million in 2027. For the last five years, Yorktown only paid $2 million annually to AAA Carting, which submitted a losing bid of $3.75 million.
“Given AAA Carting’s long and current history of servicing towns and municipalities, the awarding of the public contract to Competitive Carting, whose reliability is more suspect, to put it charitably, strains credulity and gives rise to a strong inference of an improper purpose,” the lawsuit alleges.
Brian Amico owns Competitive Carting and formerly headed Competition Carting, which won Yorktown’s garbage contract 10 years ago. AAA was the town’s waste hauler from 2018 through 2022 and has been in business for more than 25 years, holding more than 20 solid waste permits from municipalities in Westchester and Putnam.
Last year, Yorktown issued four rounds of requests for bids to reduce garbage collection costs. Competitive Carting’s proposal came in $600,000 lower than bids from previous rounds that would have reduced garbage pickups to once a week. The first bid considered by the Town Board would have doubled the town’s garbage costs to $4 million.
In the lawsuit, AAA alleges town officials didn’t even open its first bid that it submitted in late June before rejecting it.
“The fact that the town would reject a bid without opening it is highly suspicious and suggests the members of the Town Board had ulterior motives other than the cost of the contract,” the lawsuit states.
Yorktown Town Attorney Adam Rodriguez said the town will “vigorously defend” the lawsuit.
“The town’s decision to award the refuse and recycling contracts to Competitive Carting was reached after a thorough vetting process, and ultimately, the town’s decision will save Yorktown taxpayers approximately $1.5 million over the five-year term of the contract,” Rodriguez stated.
Many residents experienced a disruption in their normal garbage and recycling collections during the first few weeks Competitive Carting took over, which town officials and Amico chalked up to inexperienced drivers learning routes.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
