City Council questions Parks contracting after convicted landscapers keep multimillion-dollar tree contracts

Council members on the New York City Council’s Contracts and Parks and Recreation committees questioned city procurement officials and Parks aides on Aug. 13 about why the city continues to award large tree and landscaping contracts to firms with criminal convictions.

Chair Krishnan opened the hearing by saying the committees would “examine the parks department’s contracting practices on the accountability of its vendors” and noted several high-profile cases, including a roughly $40 million parks contract for Dragonetti Brothers and a $25 million award to Griffin’s Landscaping despite criminal findings and convictions tied to both firms.

The hearing drew testimony from the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services (MOCS) and New York City Parks. John Katsores, deputy city chief procurement officer at MOCS, described the city’s vendor-responsibility framework and the Passport system used to collect vendor disclosures and flags. Katsores said agencies must complete a “vendor responsibility determination” on a contract-by-contract basis and that the Procurement Policy Board (PPB) rules require awards to responsible vendors; he added that, under current policy and legal constraints, “vendors are not subject to debarment except in very limited circumstances prescribed by state law.”

Matt Drury, citywide chief of legislative affairs for New York City Parks, said Parks follows citywide procurement rules, conducts background checks, and consults with the Law Department and MOCS when adverse information arises. Drury and Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Greenfeld described operational steps Parks has taken to expand its vendor pool for tree work—holding pre-bid conferences, adjusting contract sizes, and working with the Department of Small Business Services—but acknowledged that some contracts remain concentrated among a relatively small number of vendors.

Council members pressed both agencies on several consistent themes:

- Why firms with convictions or documented wage-theft, bribery, or insurance-fraud findings were allowed to bid and receive large street-tree and related contracts rather than being debarred; several council members asked why a debarment at one agency (for example, the Department of Design and Construction) did not block the same vendor from Parks work.

- How DOI monitoring agreements are used and whether they effectively “rehabilitate” vendors for city procurement purposes; Local 1010 union counsel and other witnesses argued that monitoring agreements can function as a preemptive shield that prevents a finding of nonresponsibility.

- Whether the competitive sealed-bid model for many construction and tree-planting contracts produces perverse incentives—because contracts must go to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder—and whether bidders who engage in unlawful conduct can undercut responsible bidders by offering artificially low prices.

- The evidence that concentrating work with a small number of contractors slows delivery and reduces opportunities for MWBE and small local firms. Witnesses from Laborers Local 1010 and an empirical analysis by Cornell ILR testified that contracts performed by union-signatory firms in recent years produced faster completion and higher tree survivability rates in DPR’s own tree dataset.

Council members also asked multiple data and follow-up questions that MOCS and Parks staff did not have on hand: the total dollar value and quantity of citywide contracts from 2021–2025, the precise number and dollar value of contracts held by Griffin’s Landscaping and Dragonetti Brothers, how many Parks contracts were renewals versus new bids, and whether Passport shows agency-debarment flags in a unified way. MOCS officials said Passport contains cautions and flags and that MOCS’s Vendor Integrity Unit generates cautions from public records and agency referrals; they said MOCS can and does create weekly cautions based on DOJ, New York Attorney General, and other public announcements.

MOCS staff testified that from fiscal years 2021–2025, 16 vendors were placed on DOI monitoring agreements and 17 vendors were placed on agency corrective action plans; they described the Vendor Compliance Cabinet (VCC) as a cross-agency venue for coordinating responses to vendor risk. Parks officials gave counts for fiscal year 2025 procurement activity—reading that Parks’ capital division awarded 355 prime capital contracts totaling over $700 million, involving roughly 165 prime contractors and 929 subcontractors—and said Parks processed roughly $135 million in purchasing and expense payments in FY25.

Public testimony included Laborers Local 1010 representatives, who argued the city is awarding “significant shares” of street-tree work to contractors with criminal histories and that the DOI monitorship pathway enables “bad actors” to remain city vendors while sidelining qualified MWBE and union signatory contractors. Russell Weaver, research director at Cornell ILR, summarized a Cornell analysis showing tree-planting contracts performed by Local 1010 firms had higher short-term planting speed and higher tree-survival ratings than many other contracts in the period examined.

Both MOCS and Parks said they would follow up with requested reports. Council members repeatedly asked for: (a) a report of the number and total dollar value of contracts awarded to the named firms and the number of those awards that were renewals; (b) clarity on Passport flags, cautions, and whether a single agency debarment is visible systemwide; (c) counts of monitoring agreements and the staff capacity of MOCS’s Vendor Integrity Unit; and (d) metrics on emergency removals or other measured impacts from contract delays tied to vendor prosecutions.

Council members and witnesses proposed a range of next steps: legislative changes to the city charter or PPB rules to clarify when monitoring agreements are appropriate versus when a vendor should be excluded; better cross-agency visibility (a unified record of debarments/conditions); and programmatic efforts to expand local and MWBE participation in tree work (smaller contract lot sizes, outreach and technical assistance, faster payment practices). MOCS and Parks signaled willingness to continue working with the Council and oversight agencies and to provide follow-up data requested during the hearing.

The hearing closed after roughly three hours of testimony and public comment. No formal votes or ordinance actions were recorded during the session.