A federal judge on Monday dismissed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the town of Yorktown, ending the legal battle with AAA Carting, the town’s garbage hauler.
The lawsuit, filed in January 2025, alleged the municipality unfairly blocked the company's plan to build a recycling center on an 18-acre property along Route 6 by changing zoning laws. Yorktown responded by filing a motion to dismiss in late July 2025.
In his opinion, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas of the Southern District of New York granted the motion to dismiss.
“We were very confident that the court would dismiss this lawsuit,” Town Attorney Adam Rodriguez told Yorktown News. “The court recognized that the town’s actions reflected the legitimate exercise of forward-looking, constitutionally protected, home-rule authority.”
Pat Cartalemi, the company’s owner, is no stranger to legal battles with local officials over contracts to pick up residential garbage.
The suit named the Town Board at the time —Ed Lachterman, Sergio Esposito, Luciana Haughwout, Patrick Murphy and Susan Siegel—Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, individual board members, and 20 unidentified parties listed as John and Jane Does.
Supervisor Ed Lachterman said on Monday that “we had a lot of confidence in the town’s authority and ability to dictate zoning in accordance with the town’s vision for the future. The court’s decision validates our actions.”
In a statement shared with Yorktown News back in August 2025, AAA representatives said the company followed the rules in place when they bought the land and proposed the recycling center.
“We purchased this property with the legal right to build a recycling center," the statement said. "We submitted an application to construct that facility, which was permitted as of right under the zoning code that was enacted more than a decade earlier."
In September 2024, plans for the proposed ATRAC Recycling Center drew opposition from residents. The facility, which was to include a 40,000-square-foot building with a weigh station and truck access, raised concerns over its scale, the types of materials to be processed—including construction debris—and the potential traffic impact on Route 6 near Curry Street. At the time, Lachterman noted that the volume of construction debris being brought to and from the center could mean 100 or more trucks per day.
Documents submitted to the Planning Board earlier in 2024 indicated that the facility would process 3,600 tons of construction debris per week as a transfer station and 250 tons per day as a recyclables handling and materials recovery facility.
As this was going on, Rodriguez said in August 2025 the Town Board “decided to analyze the propriety of these types of facilities in the industrial zones around town.”
He added that “it’s not just their property,” which at the time was zoned as an “I-1,” a light industrial park district, and would have allowed “certain uses,” but was “subject to necessary approvals.”
The board “considered legislation to modify what is or is not allowed in the industrial zone throughout the town—it's not like they said [AAA Carting] can't do this. No, they made this use no longer permissible in that zoning district everywhere in town.”
In October 2024, the Town Board unanimously voted to adopt a law removing recycling as a permitted use in light industrial zones under the Zoning Code. As a result, there is no provision in the code that would allow the Planning Board to continue reviewing the current application for a recycling facility on Route 6. Two months later, in December, the board had to revote to correct a procedural error from the initial vote.
“The town voted to eliminate that use in the industrial zone, town-wide,” Rodriguez told Yorktown News. He said AAA still needed to obtain multiple approvals to have a project.
“The zoning code by itself allowed nothing,” he said.
Before the Town Board’s decision, there was discussion about the town code and its requirement for a 200-foot setback from a residential district. In May 2023, the Zoning Board decided the code meant any building must be set back 200 feet from the boundary line if it adjoins a residential district. Documents show that the proposed project was 100 feet from the eastern property line, placing the project in Somers, not Yorktown. Planners for the proposed facility would need to revise the project, if possible, to meet the new requirement, according to town attorneys.
AAA's complaint alleged that town officials went out of their way to prevent AAA from building the recycling center.
“Not only did the Town ignore the lawful and binding determination of its building inspector—the party responsible for interpreting the zoning code—but municipal officials delayed our land-use application for months in an effort to thwart our project and deny our constitutional rights," the company said. “When it became clear that the town could not legally stop the construction of the recycling facility, the Town Board intervened and hastily enacted an unlawful amendment to the zoning code to eliminate recycling facilities as an as-of-right use.”
Cartalemi claimed the town deliberately targeted his company. But the town attorney denied the allegation.
“We are not looking for favorable treatment,” AAA Carting wrote in the August 2025 statement. “Rather, we simply want the right to construct a facility that was permitted by the zoning code when we acquired the property. The proposed use as a recycling facility will serve a compelling need for the community not only to eliminate waste in the town and elsewhere but to ensure that recyclables are processed and reused in an environmentally friendly manner. "
In December 2024, the Town Board voted to eliminate the recycling provision from the Zoning Code. In response, AAA filed its lawsuit in January 2025.
Rodriguez argued that the town did not single out AAA Carting nor did it say explicitly they “can’t do this."
AAA, Yorktown's garbage hauler from 2018-22, previously sued the town after the 2022 bidding process for the town’s annual garbage contract, which went to Competitive Carting.
However, when Competitive Carting was awarded the contract as "lowest responsible bidder" AAA filed a petition with the court seeking to annul the Town Board’s decision, arguing that Competitive Carting was not a responsible bidder.
Attorneys for the town said Competitive Carting failed to pick up garbage, and the contract was terminated as of Sept. 1, 2023. It caused havoc, they said, for town residents. The emergency contract went to another hauler, CRP Carting. When the trash collection went to bid again, AAA won the contract and is currently the town's garbage hauler. Rodriguez said the nature of the emergency contract is that it is not forever, so the town had to go out for a bid for its full-blown contract.
“AAA was now the lowest bidder,” he explained. “We awarded it to them because they were the lowest responsible bidder."
In March 2024, the state Supreme Court ruled Yorktown officials acted legally in 2022 when they voted on the annual contract.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here