By Dan Murphy
One thing that Westchester taxpayers want for paying the highest property taxes in the nation is to have the best in quality-of-life services; Police, Fire, and Sanitation are the Big 3. In Yorktown, residents have had the worst garbage and recycling removal service in Westchester County over the past six months.
That is because last year, the Town Board under the leadership of Supervisor Matt Slater, rejected a bid from AAA Carting, and accepted a lower bid from Competitive Carting. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and the residents are paying the price.
But the latest fiasco in the Yorktown-Competitive Carting failed marriage may be the last straw, and hopefully will result in a termination with Competitive and a return to AAA Carting. Over the July 4th weekend, Competitive Carting decided to only pick up smaller trash cans, (32 Gallons), instead of the 64-gallon trash cans that have wheels and that most of us use.
The reason? With July 4 falling on a Tuesday, and with residents having a large amount of trash from their BBQ’s and July 4 celebrations, Competitive Carting realized that they would be unable to collect all the trash from everyone and took this drastic move. While Competitive, and almost every garbage contract in Westchester permits the garbage company to collect only 32-gallon cans, it is never used or enforced.
And the result has been an explosion on the Facebook Yorktown Trash Talk page, tripling to more than 1100 members. Most of these members are fed up with the excuses, both from Competitive and the Town Board, and want action taken immediately.
That is why Town Supervisor Tom Diana held a press conference last week, stating that Competitive will be fined $1,500 per day, and their contract with the town will be terminated if the horrible service continues. That announcement was not enough for the residents, and some believe that the announcement was made to protect the town in case the left-out garbage becomes a health hazard. Others say that Competitive will not pay the fines because they cannot afford to and already have old fines with the Westchester Solid Waste Commission that are unpaid.
Two Town Board members, Sergio Esposito, and Luciana Cortina Haughwout, have commented on the Yorktown Trash page and are at least listening to the residents’ complaints. Esposito posted “I completely understand everyone’s frustration. I have been calling for the termination of this contract since early May and for one very good reason. I simply do not believe CCC is capable. That coupled with the fact that they are rude to the citizens of Yorktown (which enrages me) and have become unresponsive to our needs. As far as I am concerned CCC needs to be fired now! My heart goes out to the workers as it’s not their fault.”
AAA Carting CFO Pat Cartalemi has also been posting on the Trash Talk page. “As I have stated many times before AAA Carting is ready to step in and help the Residents of the Town of Yorktown. Our attorney has reached out to the Town Attorney with no answer. We are willing to drop the lawsuit and come back as the hauler. We want to work with the Town like we always have for the 5 years before this. They can call me tonight and we will have trucks on the road in the morning picking up.”
Cartalemi also clarified that AAA’s bid did not cut any services. If the Town Board had stayed with AAA, residents would have had the same services they had without any issues for years. “The town put it out to bid 4 times with like 20 different options. We were $3,750,000 for the first year Competitive was $3,456,789. All services would stay the same…Matt Slater told us that whoever was under $3.5 million was getting the contract because that is what he needed for the budget to get it to where he could still say there was a reduction in taxes…money is all it had to do with. We warned them they this is not an easy contract and there aren’t many companies who can handle it.”
Competitive Carting is required to hold an insurance bond in case they are unable to fulfill the terms of the contract. The Town permitted Competitive to hold a monthly bond instead of a yearly bond. But even the monthly bond gives the Town the opportunity to terminate Competitive and use the bond to hire a new company, like AAA, with very little additional cost.
Trash Talk comments from residents include:
-“I have lived in Yorktown for 57 years, and we never had restrictions or requirements on the amount of trash or the size of a trash receptacle. I think for the taxes everyone pays in this town, we shouldn’t have restrictions on our trash cans. I am not going out to buy anymore trash cans! “
-“Accountability is a word society doesn’t like using these days. Who are the elected officials that even allowed this company a seat at table after they have proven in the past that they could not do this job properly? Who approved this contract? Who was responsible for conducting the due diligence on this company? A simple google search would tell you to pass on this company. Seems like someone looked the other way on this one. I wonder why?”
“Imagine I paid my property taxes with the consistency that this garage company picked up my garbage? Is this what $25,000 in property taxes gets me? This company couldn’t handle this town last time and now proving it again this contract. Town Board members should be held responsible.”
Members of Trash Talk are now leaving negative reviews for the entire Town of Yorktown on Google because of the Garbage failure.
Jann Mirchandani, democratic candidate for Town Supervisor, suggested that the Town Board use the powers from the State of Emergency declaration to terminate Competitive Carting immediately.
Other residents are questioning if the fact that former Supervisor Michael Grace represented Competitive Carting ,and attending a Town Board meeting on their behalf, has anything to do with the contract going to Competitive and that they have been given so many second chances.
