New Haven Independent

Jason Manafort (pictured), president and owner of the Plainville-based CWPM trash-hauling company, showed up to City Hall Tuesday for a meeting of the New Haven Solid Waste and Recycling Authority. The lowest of six bidders, CWPM was awarded a contract to run operations, trucking and disposition of city trash. Manafort served a month behind bars in connection with the federal probe.

After voting to award the contract Monday, the New Haven trash authority’s chairman reasoned that it’s “probably hard to find a solid waste hauling principal who hasn’t been indicted for something.”

“I’m looking forward to working with the city again,” the soft-spoken Manafort said after the meeting as he shook the hands of the authority’s attorneys, put on a black leather jacket and headed for the door.

CWPM has been hauling trash for the city since about 1993, according to Manafort. Its current contract expires Dec. 31. Winning a three-year contract Tuesday, CWPM became the first trash-haulers to contract with the city’s newly created independent trash authority. (Click here, here, and here for recent stories about that authority.)

CWPM underbid not only five other bidders, but its own current contract with the city. CWPM currently charges $94 per ton to haul away trash. Under the new contract, it will charge only $70, according to city budget director Larry Rusconi.

“The market has changed. I’m not a magician,” said Manafort.

He said his firm was also able to give the city a better deal because the contracts have been restructured.

Trash services are currently divided into two contracts: CWPM does the trucking and operation of the transfer station; Wheelabrator does the disposal of the trash.

Those contracts have now been combined. Manafort said by taking on all three functions, his company was able to offer a better deal.

His company also made an offer to take over the city’s recycling services: Instead of the authority paying $23 per ton of recyclables, the authority would be paid $25 per ton. The recycling services were offered as an optional add-on to the trash contract, meaning the trash authority can have the company take over recycling management from the city if it so chooses.

“We’d Probably Be Sued”

Manafort came to the meeting Tuesday one year after being released from federal prison as part of a probe into the waste-hauling industry in Connecticut and eastern New York. He was one of 33 individuals and 10 businesses swept up in the probe.

Manafort had a relatively minor offense: He pleaded guilty in June 2007 to destroying a computer in order to prevent federal authorities from seizing it as part of their trash-industry probe. He was sentenced to, and served, one month in prison. He was also fined $15,000.

“My problem had nothing to do with the trash industry,” said Manafort, waiting in the hallway of the fifth floor of City Hall Tuesday night as the authority met behind close doors to decide the trash-haulers’ fate. He said the probe started as a racketeering investigation, but his reason for destroying the computer didn’t have to do with the trash corruption conspiracy. Asked why he chucked the computer out, he replied, “it’s a long story.”

Manafort said CWPM continued to conduct business uninterrupted, and to his knowledge its contract with the city was not reexamined as a result of the federal charges. “Nothing was affected.”

Commissioners inside agreed. Those interviewed were not aware of, and did not take issue with, his role in the racketeering probe.

“Oh?” responded Chairman Joseph Dolan (pictured) when informed of the federal charges. He said he hadn’t heard about the charges, but “it wouldn’t have influenced my vote.”

“It’s probably hard to find a solid waste hauling principal who hasn’t been indicted for something,” added Dolan. “We’re contracting with the firm, not with him [Manafort].”

The authority’s consultant, Isabella Schroeder of the firm Malcolm Pirnie, said she hadn’t heard of Manafort’s indictment either, but she didn’t find it relevant to the matter at hand.

“A lot of firms got swept up” in the corruption probe, she said. “There wasn’t any justification to fire them as any part of the federal probe. We’d probably be sued if we made that an issue.”

Schroeder said as part of the bidding process, companies were asked to cite any current or pending litigation against the firm. CWPM was not charged criminally in the federal probe, and did not mention the federal charges against Manafort in its bid.

The news didn’t faze Gerry Antunes, the aldermanic representative to the authority, either.

“One month?” he said, implying the prison term as not very serious. He said the bid should be judged on its merits: “Their proposal seems to be the best.”

The board’s newest member, ex-State Sen. Tony Ciarlone, said the vote was easy to make based on the numbers: “It was pretty self-evident.”

The contract passed by a unanimous vote. Those present for the vote were: Antunes, Ciarlone, Dolan and, by phone, Konstantine Drakonakis.

Mayor: Part of Prison Re-Entry

Downstairs, standing in the hallway after a highly attended Mayor’s Night In, Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. found compassion for the trash-hauler.

“Frankly, with regard to city vendors, if the firm met the requirements” of the bid, they should be judged on those merits, the mayor said. DeStefano framed the issue as part of a larger effort to aid prison reentry by “banning the box.” The mayor has been leading a charge to give ex-cons a second chance by getting rid of the box on city job applications that asks if a candidate is a felon.

“At the same time we’re talking about banning the box,” he said, the city shouldn’t be knocking any vendors out of a process because of the criminal history of a principal of the firm.

“It doesn’t disturb me,” he said of Manafort’s specific indictment.