Yorktown demands $3.5M for trash collection foul-up

The Town of Yorktown is demanding $3.5 million from its former refuse hauler for suddenly ceasing to collect trash.

Yorktown accused Competitive Carting Corp., of Mahopac, of breach of contract and unjust enrichment, in a complaint filed Oct. 26 in Westchester Supreme Court. The trash hauler’s bonding company, Great Midwest Insurance Co., Houston, is also named as a defendant.

“It cannot seriously be disputed that CCC materially breached its contract,” the complaint states. “Beginning in or around early July 2023, it routinely failed to collect and dispose of the town’s refuse and recycling material.”

CCC executive Brian Amico and a spokesperson for Great Midwest’s parent company, Skyward Specialty Insurance Group, did not reply to emails asking for their sides of the story.

CCC was awarded a five-year residential refuse and recycling contract for nearly $18.8 million. Three one-year extensions could have boosted its eight year earnings to nearly $32 million.

The town put CCC on notice last July for allegedly failing to carry out its duties, according to the complaint. On Aug. 28, most of the company’s trucks were repossessed. On Sept. 1, employees walked off the job because they were not being paid.

Yorktown quickly issued an emergency, one-year contract, for $4.3 million, to CRP Sanitation, Cortlandt Manor.

The emergency contract cost Yorktown $743,000 more than it would have paid CCC for the same period, the complaint states. And Yorktown will have to take bids for a new multi-year contract “which is certain to be higher than the prices that would have been paid under CCC’s contract had the town not been forced to terminate CCC’s contract for non-performance.”

Yorktown’s outside attorneys, Adam Rodriguez and David Chen, also allege that Great Midwest Insurance Co. has ignored a demand for payment under CCC’s performance bond.

The garbage contract has been controversial for other reasons, at least from the point of view of AAA Carting and Rubish Removal, of Buchanan.

AAA, which had previously handled the town’s trash, has sued Yorktown twice this year, claiming that it should have been awarded the multi-year contract as well as the emergency contract.

AAA argues that it was the lowest responsible bidder for the 5-year contract, with the emphasis on responsible and not price. CCC was new and had no experience in municipal garbage collection, AAA claimed. It did not have enough trucks and its owner, Brian Amico, had filed for personal bankruptcy protection.

Yorktown knew for months that CCC was unable to handle the work and then revoked the deal and issued a no-bid contract to CRP Sanitation, even though AAA had proposed doing the work for $75,000 less.

Yorktown has responded in court papers that AAA’s accusations are frivolous and hyperbolic.

AAA’s 5-year bid would have cost $1.5 million more than CCC’s contract, according to a Nov. 3 memorandum of law in response to AAA’s second lawsuit.

As to the emergency contract, the town says, AAA would not agree to all of the terms, it could not take over the work immediately and it insisted on being paid $2.4 million for the period for which CCC had the contract instead of AAA.

AAA also had “significant performance issues during its prior stint as the town’s garbage collector,” the memo states, and AAA’s principals had been indicted for extortion.

The last factor is an apparent reference to a 2013 federal case in which 32 people were indicted in an alleged organized crime scheme to control waste hauling in and around New York City. Pasquale P. Cartalemi Jr. and his son Pasquale L. Cartalemi, the principals in AAA Carting, were charged with extortion and extortion conspiracy.

In 2014, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara dropped the cases after the Cartalemi’s complied with a deferred prosecution agreement.