New York City’s campaign watchdog is scrutinizing a series of donations to Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign by owners and employees of a Queens waste hauling company that later won a set of coveted licenses from the sanitation department.
Campaign disclosures show five employees of Royal Waste Services gave a combined $10,800 to then-candidate Adams on the same day – June 7, 2021 — just two weeks before Adams won the Democratic primary. Records show one of the employees donated $4,000, exceeding the city’s legal limit by $2,000, and half of their money was returned by the campaign.
Earlier this year, Royal Waste Services was one of 18 garbage haulers awarded rights to pick up garbage from businesses as part of an effort to regulate the city’s troubled private carting industry.
The donations from the company’s employees were flagged in a draft audit of Adams’ 2021 election fund by the Campaign Finance Board that was published in May and obtained by Gothamist last month through a public records request.
While the audit does not draw a link between the contributions and Royal Waste being awarded the licenses from the sanitation department, the Campaign Finance Board has demanded Adams’ team explain how the money was solicited, questioning whether the company bundled the donations as a way to donate more money to Adams’ campaign than is allowed by law. The company was the only private waste carter flagged in the audit.
Royal Waste Services is one of several companies the campaign watchdog has flagged in its audit of Adams’ campaign. The audit also questions how the campaign solicited donations from employees of two other companies, KSK Construction and New World Mall, which are reportedly being investigated as part of a federal probe into Adams’ campaign.
The audit shows Adams’ campaign did not file required paperwork explaining whether Royal Waste Services was an “intermediary,” also known as a bundler, that solicited the donations. Good government advocates said those types of disclosures are crucial to allow the public to see who might be trying to grab a political candidate’s attention.
Sanitation department spokesperson Joshua Goodman said Royal Waste did not receive any special treatment as a result of its contributions to Adams’ campaign.
“The ethical standards set forth in the contracts are above and beyond what many advocates expected, and we are not afraid to enforce them,” Goodman said.
The Campaign Finance Board demanded Adams’ team explain the donations from Royal Waste employees and other suspected intermediaries by July 1. Adams’ campaign has asked to have until the end of August to file a response.
Representatives from Adams’ campaign did not respond to questions about the donations from Royal Waste. Campaign Finance Board representatives said the agency does not comment on ongoing audits.
Similar audits of political campaigns are routinely conducted by the Campaign Finance Board. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2013 campaign was heavily scrutinized by the watchdog for also failing to report intermediaries. The 901-page document on Adams’ fund reveals sloppy record keeping, including dozens of “potential intermediaries” that went unreported by the campaign as well as $2.3 million worth of expenses that were not properly documented.
Rachel Fauss, a policy adviser with good-government group Reinvent Albany, said groups suspected of bundling donations are subject to additional scrutiny from the Campaign Finance Board because they could be a sign they’re illegally funneling taxpayer money into a campaign through the city’s matching funds program.
Fauss also said intermediaries can be a way to circumvent limits on campaign donations from people with business before the city.
“It’s definitely a way of increasing the amount of influence you want to show, if you’re gathering donations from a bunch of people,” Fauss said. “It’s a way of amplifying your standing with a campaign in a way you can’t do on your own because you are subject to limits.”
Public records indicate that at the time Royal Waste donated to Adams’ campaign, the company was also lobbying city officials about issues facing the commercial waste industry.
Between 2021 and 2023, Royal Waste paid $276,750 to the firm Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno to lobby Adams, the City Council and the sanitation department about topics including commercial waste reform, public records show. A partner at that firm, Vito Pitta, was working for Adams’ campaign while lobbying on behalf of Royal Waste and other companies, the Daily News reported last year.
Councilmember Sandy Nurse, who until this year chaired the sanitation committee, suggested the donations from Royal Waste helped the company curry favor with the Adams administration.
“It seems like based on the investigations surrounding different people both in the administration and potentially with the mayor, pay-to-play is standard operating procedure for this administration,” Nurse said. “I’m not surprised, but it is disappointing.”
Neither Adams nor Royal Waste Services and its employees have been accused of wrongdoing. But the FBI is investigating other donations to the Adams campaign involving other groups of suspected intermediaries that were flagged by the Campaign Finance Board draft audit.
A push to overhaul the city’s private trash companies
At the time of the donations, Royal Waste was among dozens of companies at a crossroads as the sanitation department prepared to institute major reforms to the city’s private carting industry. Unlike residential garbage that’s picked up by the sanitation department, all commercial businesses in the city have to hire private haulers to collect their trash.
In 2019, the City Council and former Mayor Bill de Blasio passed a law mandating the creation of 20 “commercial waste zones” across the five boroughs. In each one, private businesses will be required to have their trash picked up by one of three city-approved trash haulers.
The goal was to rein in the industry, which for decades regularly dispatched trucks on long, inefficient routes across multiple boroughs. The practice was tied to a pattern of traffic deaths involving garbage trucks, and sparked rallies from labor groups that accused private carting companies of mistreating their employees.
Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch has described the industry prior to the reform as the “Wild West of commercial carting.”
Last January, the sanitation department announced the companies selected for each of those zones — and Royal Waste Services won rights to pick up trash from businesses in five of them. The new rules will go into effect in just one zone in Queens this fall, and officials plan to roll them out to the rest of the city starting next year.
Royal Waste CEO Paul Reali didn’t return a request for comment. Carters who have been awarded zones in the new system are prohibited from speaking to the press without first seeking approval from the sanitation department.
Goodman, the sanitation department spokesperson, defended Royal Waste being awarded licenses for commercial waste pickup, calling the review process that picked the companies “incredibly thorough.”
“The insinuation that anyone had fingers on the scale for or against any proposer lacks both evidence and credibility,” he wrote.
Goodman said a committee used the same criteria to review every carter that applied for a license under the new system. He also said the sanitation department has broad authority to crack down on carters who don’t play by the rules under the new zone system.
Royal Waste has been a major operator in the industry since at least the late 1990s. Records show that as recently as 2018 the company was part of a nonprofit alliance of private waste haulers that resisted reforms to the industry. From 2017 to 2019, its owners employed the son of former Queens Councilmember I. Daneek Miller, who led an effort to loosen environmental regulations of private carting companies, the New York Post reported at the time.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards supported the commercial waste zone reform and said he’s hopeful that the new zone system will give the city an opportunity to keep a closer eye on companies like Royal Waste.
“One of the reasons we did waste zones obviously was to make sure that we could narrow the companies down, that we can really see some signs of accountability when it comes to worker safety, when it comes to pollution, when it comes to garbage in our neighborhoods,” Richards said.
“We’ll be watching with a keen eye to make sure that if Royal does not adhere and do better by the community that they’re held accountable.”