Waste Management Inc., the giant garbage disposal company that has long held public contracts in Chicago and its suburbs, often gave expensive gifts to politicians and flew Ald. Edward Vrdolyak (10th) and other officials on company airplanes, according to people familiar with the practice.
Top company officials approved the trips and gifts, including cash for one Chicago alderman, an electric typewriter for another, expensive cuts of meat and other presents last Christmas to many local politicians, and a vacation for a high-ranking city official, according to the sources.
In an interview Friday, Vrdolyak acknowledged taking at least one trip on a Waste Management airplane, though he declined to discuss it.
”It`s had no effect on my voting,” Vrdolyak said. ”I`ve led the opposition against them many times. And if they would have billed me for the trip, I would have paid for it.”
Vrdolyak said he has made repeated requests, written and oral, to top Waste Management executives to have the company bill him for the trip, but to no avail.
The Tribune reported last month that Ald. Clifford Kelley (20th) received $10,000 from Waste Management while Kelley was supporting the company`s efforts to win a major city contract and that the company paid for a Mexico vacation for former Corporation Counsel James Montgomery. The sources disclosed this week that both arrangements were among the favors to politicians approved by top company officials.
Details of Waste Management`s efforts to court politicians and the possible complicity of top corporate executives are important because federal investigators are trying to determine whether the company engaged in a pattern of attempting to buy influence, sources familiar with that inquiry said.
If so, the federal government may ask a grand jury to decide whether this pattern was in violation of federal racketeering laws, the sources said.
Under federal law, a business can be held criminally responsible if its top officials engage in misconduct on its behalf. Essentially, prosecutors must decide whether any illegalities were part of the company`s pattern of doing business or the actions of a handful of executives.
In most cases, the Waste Management investigation is not focusing on the recipients of small gifts, such as politicians who accepted steaks, according to the sources. Instead, it is focusing on the company and its practices, the sources said.
A Waste Management spokesman, Donald Reddicliffe, said Friday, ”In as much as there is an an ongoing investigation, it is inappropriate and improper for us to make any comment.”
The sources said Ald. Perry Hutchinson (9th) received an electric typewriter from Waste Management. Hutchinson and his attorney in this investigation were unavailable for comment. But one source familiar with Hutchinson`s version of the events said the alderman claims anything he accepted from Waste Management was used to help his constituents.
A spokesman for Cook County State`s Atty. Richard Daley confirmed that Daley received 6 pounds of meat from Waste Management last Christmas in a package marked ”Happy Holidays.”
Daley stored the meat in the back of a freezer in his home, according to office spokesman Terry Levin, who said Daley`s office does not have any cases pending against Waste Management. He said Daley has not opened the package.
Levin said Daley does not consider acceptance of the meat a violation of state law. He said that taking such a small gift would be illegal only if it were aimed at influencing the actions of an official.
”We don`t think it was,” Levin said.
Du Page County Board member Pat Trowbridge acknowledged in a recent interview that Waste Management officials took her on a chartered Lake Michigan fishing trip last year. She would not go into details, except to say that a company representative called her and said, ”The Coho were running”
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and ”We`re going fishing. Would you like to come along?”
The payment to Kelley came in the form of a ”finder`s fee” after Kelley introduced Waste Management executives to a businessman who owned South Side land the company wanted to buy, sources familiar with that transaction said.
Kelley, portrayed by various government officials as one of Waste Management`s closest city council allies, has declined comment on the allegation.
Montgomery, formerly the top aide to Mayor Harold Washington, has acknowledged taking the week-long trip to Mexico with his family last year, but said he did not know at the time that Waste Management paid for it. The vacation cost the company about $4,000.
A key focus of the federal investigation is the activities of Waste Management of Illinois, the subsidiary that handles the parent company`s local garbage disposal activities.
As part of this inquiry, investigators are taking another look at a case in which the general manager of a subsidiary of Waste Management of Illinois admitted paying $12,000 in bribes to Fox Lake officials to get a municipal garbage collection contract. The official–John E. Horak, general manager of HOD Disposal–has said that the payments were approved by his superiors, top officials of Waste Management.
The company has denied Horak`s allegation.
In the last 18 years, Waste Management has grown from a tiny suburban Chicago trash hauler to the biggest waste disposal firm in the world. Today it is a billion dollar corporation with public and private contracts in most U.S. states and in Saudi Arabia and Australia–largely because of its ability to win government garbage disposal contracts.
Though the company`s hazardous-waste disposal business has attracted much controversy over the years, most of its profits come from the disposal of garbage.
Over the years, some of Waste Management`s critics have complained that the company receives breaks in its dealings with public agencies in the Chicago area.
For instance, a competitor, X-L Disposal Corp., has charged that Chicago officials renewed some of Waste Management`s city contracts without public bidding.
For several years, Waste Management had contracts to run three of the city`s waste transfer stations, where garbage is stored until it is carted off to incinerators or landfills. The company lost the contracts this year. But it still has a contract to dispose of city trash at a large landfill it owns on the South Side.