Labor union says Parks Dept. should let them protest contract awarded to scandal-ridden company
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A local labor union and a group of lawmakers are calling on the Parks Department to allow unions to protest contracts awarded to companies. The agency recently rejected a complaint filed by Local 1010 after they objected to tree-pruning work given to Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping, which recently pleaded guilty to insurance fraud. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
A local labor union and around a dozen lawmakers, including several from Queens, are calling on the city’s Parks Department to reform its public contract bidding rules to allow for unions to protest taxpayer-funded contracts it awards to private companies.
The call from Laborers’ Local 1010, located in Whitestone, and members of the City Council’s Committee on Parks and Recreation comes after the labor union was told it couldn’t protest a contract awarded to Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping, a Brooklyn-based company whose owners recently pleaded guilty to insurance fraud in Manhattan Criminal Court.
In a letter sent to the Parks Department in August, an attorney for Local 1010 formally requested that the city agency not reward Dragonetti a $1 million dollar tree-pruning contract, citing the charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office against the company’s owners, Nick and Vito Dragonetti.
While there is a formal process under New York City Procurement Policy Board rules for protesting a city contract – which are paid for using taxpayer dollars – the Parks Department declined to recognize the protest, telling the union it didn’t have standing to voice its concerns through the formal complaint.
“[Protests should be allowed from] people who have a vested interest,” Lowell Barton, the vice president and organizing director of Local 1010, recently told the Eagle. “And we believe we do – we do this work every single day.”
“We're trying to make the industry clean here,” Barton added. “We're not trying to hurt it.”
Denying the union’s protest, the Parks Department went through with awarding Dragonetti the contract, as well as several other multi-million contracts that have been awarded or are pending approval by the city’s comptroller.
Now, the union and a group of City Councilmembers, led by Queens Councilmember and Parks Committee Chair Shekar Krishnan, are urging the Parks Department to alter the way it interprets the procurement rules.
“The Department’s position regarding the PPB rules prevents valid stakeholders from raising objections and participating in the procurement process,” Krishnan and 10 other councilmembers wrote in a letter to Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue on Tuesday and shared exclusively with the Eagle.
“This interpretation is the antithesis of the intent of the PPB rules, which include promoting public confidence in the City’s procurement policies, protecting the procurement system against corruption, waste, fraud and abuse and ensuring fair and equitable treatment of persons involved in the procurement process,” they added.
According to James Versocki, Local 1010’s counsel, the PPB rules are designed to allow for companies and other groups on the ground to arm city agencies with information they may not otherwise be privy to.
“We're in the streets, we see who's working, we know interrelationships, and we are able to give you information that you shouldn’t just blindly accept, but it's stuff that you should look at potentially,” Versocki said.
“The whole point of PPB rules is to give the city the best information to award work, not just at the cheapest price…but it's also to make sure that they're responsible,” he added.
Had the agency accepted the union’s protest, it would have likely started on the objection process outlined by the city’s rules. That would have involved fully analyzing the complaint and rejecting the contract if the agency found grounds to do so. If a contract is rejected, it is given to the next bidder.
In a statement sent to the Eagle, Krishnan said that altering the way the agency interprets the rules is a matter of public trust. Allowing the union to object adds an additional layer of protection against public dollars being spent on potential bad actors, he said.
“Preventing labor unions and other members of the public from objecting to city awards to unscrupulous contractors undermines that trust,” the Queens lawmaker said. “NYC Parks must allow unions to object to bad contracts.”
City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the council’s Committee on Parks and Recreation, is leading a group of lawmakers calling on the Parks Department to reassess the way it interprets the city’s procurement rules and procedures. File photo by William Alatriste/NYCC Media Unit
The city has awarded Dragonetti Brothers hundreds of contracts for park landscaping and maintenance work, as well as sidewalk reconstruction and pedestrian crosswalk ramp construction over the past two decades. Dragonetti is only one of several companies to consistently put in bids for the work doled out by the Parks Department.
In the fall of 2021, the company was indicted for evading more than $1.1 million in insurance premiums between 2017 and 2019 by misclassifying over 200 laborers, foremen and heavy-equipment operators as florists, office workers or salespersons, according to the criminal complaint.
In the months following the indictment, tree-pruning work in Brooklyn and Queens – the primary areas of work for the company – came to a complete halt, the Brooklyn Paper reported in September. The city had awarded the company with a $12 million contract prior to the indictment, and was unable to put the contract up for re-bidding.
After initially pleading not guilty, the brothers entered a guilty plea in Manhattan Criminal Court in October. As part of the plea agreement, the company agreed to pay a $1.2 million restitution to the New York State Insurance Fund.
The agreement also stipulated that the company – as well as D.B. Demolition, a company also owned by the Dragonetti brothers – will be unable to be awarded contracts given out by the city’s Department of Design and Construction for the next three years.
Additionally, a court-appointed monitor was assigned to keep an eye on the company’s finances and practices, and Vito and Nicholas Dragonetti have been barred from leading the company. Shares of the company owned by the brothers have been moved into a trust.
Despite being barred from DDC contracts, the agreement made no mention of contracts with the Parks Department, which have continued.
In the months preceding the guilty plea, the agency awarded Dragonetti over $20 million in contracts, according to reporting by THE CITY.
While the lawmakers – which include Queens City Councilmembers Francisco Moya, Sandra Ung, Robert Holden, Linda Lee and Krishanan – did not say in their letter than the agency should cease all contracts with Dragonetti, they did say that the union, and other interested parties, should at least have the right to formally protest.
“A glaring example of the impropriety of the Department’s interpretation of the PPB rules was its refusal to even consider objections involving notice of a Department bidder being indicted for insurance fraud,” the letter reads. “Although Local 1010 did not submit a bid, Local 1010 should be considered an interested party, as they have an interest in upholding labor standards within the five boroughs and protecting their own membership, which could have worked on the project had it not been awarded to an unscrupulous and indicted contractor.”
“The Department should not limit public participation in the procurement process,” they added. The Department must allow labor and labor-management organizations to file objections to awarded contracts and proposals. These parties are interested parties with valid concerns, and their participation is critical to protecting public confidence in the City’s procurement process.”
When reached by the Eagle for comment, a spokesperson for the Parks Department said: “We are in receipt of the letter and are reviewing the Council Members’ recommendations.”
The spokesperson added that the agency continues to do business with Dragonetti despite the guilty plea in an effort to keep up with the city’s tree maintenance needs.
“In order keep our urban canopy as safe as possible, we believe it is in the best interest of New Yorkers to complete these contracts as to not further disrupt citywide tree pruning and planting,” the spokesperson said.
Dragonetti Brothers did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment before print time.
Update: This story was updated at 11:06 a.m., on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, with additional comment from the Parks Department regarding its continued relationship with Dragonetti Brothers.
