In 1983, state trooper John Roggeveen began pulling Waste Management Inc.`s giant trash-hauling rigs off to the side of the Calumet Expressway and slapping them with costly tickets for exceeding state weight limits.
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Sometime later, Roggeveen received a lucrative trucking contract to haul for Waste Management. The ticketing subsided, according to sources familiar with the arrangement.
Roggeveen was not the only low-level Illinois public employee to benefit from the largesse of the world`s biggest disposal company, which has come to dominate the industry largely because of its foothold it gained in Illinois government contracts in the last 18 years.
Linas Zeimys, a $17.50-an-hour Chicago city employee who loads Waste Management`s trucks with city trash, also snared a lucrative contract from Waste Management to help the company haul the city`s trash. The city says this could be a conflict-of-interest: Most truckers are paid by the trip, and someone in Zeimys` job easily could favor one trucker over another by loading rigs more quickly. In fact, according to his city job description, Zeimys is likely to have loaded trash onto his own truck.
Though company executives would make no comment, some sources familiar with Waste Management`s version of these events said the company eventually contacted Roggeveen`s state police supervisors and complained that he was pressuring them for contracts.
They also said top company executives had no idea that Roggeveen, who has since been placed on leave without pay, and Zeimys were among the firm`s dozens of trucking subcontractors.
But whatever the case, the contracts to the state trooper and the low-level city worker illustrate how crucial public officials, no matter their rank, are to Waste Management`s success, and the lengths to which the company has gone to win their favor.
Details of Waste Management`s dealings with public officials in Illinois are important because federal investigators are examining whether the company routinely tried to buy influence, sources familiar with the inquiry said. Waste Management officials have confirmed that the some of the company`s activities in Illinois are under investigation by federal authorities.
In April, The Tribune reported that top Waste Management officials directed a $10,000 payment to Ald. Clifford Kelley (20th) while Kelley was supporting the company`s efforts to win a major city contract.
The newspaper also reported that the company paid to send former Corporation Counsel James Montgomery, then the mayor`s most powerful aide, and his family on a luxury vacation trip to Mexico.
Additionally, sources familiar with Waste Management`s operations have said the company often gave expensive gifts to politicians and flew Ald. Edward Vrdolyak (10th) and other Chicago officials on its fleet of corporate jets.
In a statement in a federal court suit last year, a Waste Management executive said company divisions keep special corporate accounts to give
”promotional” gifts to politicians, including costly cuts of meat.
One person familiar with this practice said the company spent $10,000 last Christmas on steaks for Chicago politicians, community leaders and others, with some gift packages costing $450 each.
It is difficult to determine the value of the contracts Waste Management awarded to Roggeveen and Zeimys. But city records indicate that a waste-hauling contract for Waste Management could net as much as $90,000 a year in income for a driver who owns his own rig.
Efforts to reach Roggeveen were unsuccessful. His attorneys, Patrick A. Tuite and Brent Stratton, did not return repeated telephone calls.
Other sources said Roggeveen has been placed on leave without pay as a result of his efforts to win business from Waste Management.
Illinois Department of State Police officials would not talk about Roggeveen`s relationship with Waste Management. However, Robert Fletcher, an agency spokesman, did say that the department is reviewing unspecified allegations involving Roggeveen.
Roggeveen was one of several troopers assigned to patrol the Calumet Expressway, the route taken by big trash-haulers heading for Waste
Management`s dump at 138th Street.
Among other things, the troopers are supposed to make certain trucks do not carry loads exceeding state weight restrictions. When a trooper suspects a truck of being overweight, he escorts it to a weighing station.
Truckers may be tempted to overload their trucks because they often are paid by the weight carried.
State troopers use their discretion in choosing which trucks might be overloaded, and stops are often based on observations as low tires or trash hanging from the back of trucks. In time, veteran troopers develop a knack for spotting overweight trucks.
Records supplied by state officials do not show any tickets written by Roggeveen for overweight Waste Management trucks in 1982.
But in 1983, Roggeveen ticketed Waste Management trucks at least 21 times for carrying overweight loads, state records show. As a result of the tickets work, Waste Management paid at least $21,570 in state fines.
The fines ranged from a few hundred dollars to more than $2,000, depending on how much the trucks were overweight. Sometimes, Roggeveen ticketed several Waste trucks in succession, without ticketing any other trucking companies, the records indicate.
Meanwhile, Roggeveen`s wife purchased a new Mack truck in late 1982, according to state records. She bought another one in November, 1983.
At some point after John Roggeveen began writing tickets in 1983, his wife received a contract to haul for Waste Management, as well as a contract for her janitorial company to clean out offices at the company`s dump on Chicago`s Southeast Side, according to sources familiar with the contracts. The exact timing of these contract awards is not clear.
Sources close to the case now say most state investigators believe John Roggeveen controlled both the truck and the janitorial business.
In 1984, he ticketed Waste Management trucks just four times, with fines totaling $3,860, state records show.
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Company spokesman Donald Reddicliffe would not discuss Waste Management`s alleged dealings with the Roggeveens, but he suggested the number of overweight tickets might have dropped in 1984 because the firm started using trailers made of a lighter metal.
There is no record of Roggeveen having written any tickets on Waste Management trucks in the first four months of 1985. However, between May 25, 1985, and July 22, 1985, Roggoveen ticketed Waste Management trucks at least 12 times, with the company having to pay fines totaling more than $8,500, state records show.
In the first week of August, 1985, Roggeveen went to Waste Management to ask for another trucking contract, according to several sources familiar with the incident.
Waste Management executives were angered by Roggeveen`s approach and contacted their attorneys, according to the sources. The lawyers, in turn, contacted high-ranking officials of the Department of State Police, and told them that a state trooper was shaking them down, the sources said. Company officials contended Roggeveen said his colleagues would join in the ticketing efforts, according to the sources.
Waste Management officials arranged for another meeting later that month with Roggeveen. But unknown to the trooper, state officials were listening in when he discussed getting a contract with a Waste Management executive.
State police officials have turned over the results of that meeting to the Illinois attorney general, the sources said. The attorney general`s office declined to comment on the case.
Chicago city officials said they were not aware of Linas Zeimys`
relationship with Waste Management until contacted by reporters.
For several years, Waste Management had contracts to haul city trash from transfer stations–where trash is delivered by the garbage trucks that pick it up in the neighborhoods–to its large dump on the Southeast Side. Zeimys works at one of these city transfer stations, at 39th and Iron Streets, running the machine that scoops trash onto the Waste Management trucks.
Zeimys also had a contract with Waste Management to use a truck he owns to haul some of that trash, sources familiar with the arrangement said.
When Waste Management stopped doing business with the city last year, the Zeimys truck began hauling for the company that replaced Waste Management, the John Sexton Contracting Co., in Hillside. The Zeimys truck still hauls city trash for Sexton, an executive of that company said.
Kirsten Svare, a spokeswoman for the city`s Department of Streets and Sanitation, said Zeimys` contract seems to represent a conflict of interest, since his trucking business indirectly works for the same city agency that employs him. She said the department will investigate before deciding whether to take action against Zeimys.
Corporate records list Grace Zeimys, Linas` wife, as the sole owner of GZ Enterprises, the one-truck trucking company.
However, state records list Linas Zeimys as the truck`s owner. Moreover, when GZ Enterprises applied for participation in the city`s minority set-aside program as a woman-owned company, the proposal was rejected by the city Purchasing Department because program officials decided that Linas Zeimys had too much control of the business.
The same application said that the company had done business with Waste Management.
City purchasing officials say the application did not mention that Linas Zeimys is a city employee.
When a reporter visited the Zeimys home last Thursday, Mrs. Zeimys said she would call the next day. However, she did not.
Waste Management officials would not comment on details of their dealings with Roggeveen and Zeimys. But Jeffrey Cole, a lawyer for company vice-president John DeBoer, whose division handles much of the company`s Illinois contracts, said: ”There was no wrongdoing on his (DeBoer`s) part and no wrongdoing on the company`s part.”