The Metro regional government is scrutinizing the work of a prominent Portland disposal company it hired to sustainably manage garbage and recycling from the Oregon Convention Center after determining the hauler dumped more than 17 tons of plastic in a landfill even though it was supposed to be recycled.
That company, City of Roses Disposal & Recycling, has drawn accolades in the Portland area for its environmental efforts and its significance to the community as a Black-owned business. But it has also recently faced scrutiny for work on several government projects tied to Metro, Multnomah County and the city of Portland.
Metro is also evaluating whether the business is following other regulatory rules, officials have said. Metro is both the local regulator for commercial recyclers and a major customer for City of Roses, awarding the company roughly $5.5 million in contracts including its work at the convention center.
Nick Christensen, a Metro spokesperson, declined to say if the agency is investigating the company’s performance regarding the convention center and other contracts.
“Metro regularly examines contract performance to ensure that our contractors are meeting their commitments,” Christensen said in a statement. “We have no comment on pending reviews.”
In December, Metro issued a violation notice to City of Roses — one of only 13 doled out by the agency in the past five years. It found that the company “failed to maintain and report accurate records to Metro” and improperly discarded 17 tons of plastic from the convention center between July 2024 and August 2025 “due to space constraints and inability to identify appropriate markets” to sell it.
Metro levied a $10,690 fine against City of Roses for the violations and demanded an “operating plan” to improve tracking and reporting procedures. Agency staff also recommended limiting the company’s operating license to a one-year renewal but policymakers didn’t sign off.
City of Roses paid its fine and delivered the improvement plan Feb. 17.
City of Roses CEO Alando Simpson told The Oregonian/OregonLive that dumping 17 tons of recyclables occurred in large part because the company couldn’t find a buyer for the plastic, adding that it represented a small percentage of total waste the company has handled. He also said his business quickly took steps to improve oversight in response to the violations.
“The issue was operational, not intentional, and we strengthened our systems immediately,” Simpson said in a statement.
Threat to company’s franchise drew public pushback
City of Roses’ success over three decades of operation helped it receive a contract for work at the convention center and Simpson’s deep political and business connections helped ensure the company didn’t face potentially devastating operating limitations after problems arose.
Simpson’s father, Al Simpson, started the business in 1996, taking out a second mortgage on his home to get it off the ground, he said in a public meeting in December. Since then it has secured contracts with many local municipalities and built a reputation in the community for its sustainable practices and job opportunities for people of color, Alando Simpson added.
The business now employs more than 75 people and has “diverted more than 75 million pounds of material from landfills,” Simpson said. It was also the first waste disposal company to roll out an electric garbage truck in Oregon.
“As a locally owned, Black-owned small business competing in an industry dominated by multinational conglomerates, we have led with our values — investing in accountability and infrastructure that keep materials and economic opportunity in circulation and advance a more resilient circular economy for Oregon,” he said in a statement.
In 2024, City of Roses won a $400,000 contract with Metro to handle day to day garbage and recycling at the convention center after beating out two other competitors. Those other bids came from California-headquartered Recology and Arizona-based Republic Services.
City of Roses had the highest prices but won the contract regardless, records show, narrowly edging out Recology on a 100-point scale, 78.88 to 78.25, according to a proposal evaluation from Metro. The company performed particularly well in categories on diversity and sustainability, earning maximum 20-point and 10-point scores, while Recology got just 8 and 7.
A year later, following the incident with Metro’s convention center contract and other issues, agency staff proposed changes to City of Roses’ franchise renewal.
In December, officials recommended a one-year option, rather than the typical five, in what would have been an unprecedented move. In a memo to the elected Metro Council, they wrote that the change would be a tool to press for better compliance in light of the recently identified violations. The franchise permit allows City of Roses to operate and pick up contracts in the metro area; without it, the business would have to shut down its waste handling facility, officials said.
City of Roses supporters gave glowing testimony on the company’s behalf, including an official from Portland’s powerful business chamber and 11 others. Simpson, a former member of the Oregon Sustainability Board and Oregon Transportation Commission, warned that a shortened franchise agreement could be devastating to the business.
“I’m here to speak on behalf of this great Oregon company that continues to be a force for sustainability and community,” Marcus Mundy, executive director of the Coalition of Communities of Color, said in the Dec. 18 public meeting. “If it were up to me alone, I would urge you to renew this franchise for the next decade, as they’ve demonstrated exceptional results over time.”
Metro councilors voted unanimously to renew the company’s franchise for the full five years. They raised concerns that it would be unfair to levy such a punishment without more information on the company’s overall performance.
Metro also tacked on some stipulations and City of Roses promised to take several additional steps toward improvement.
Green project problems
On more than one occasion, City of Roses’ disposal methods have raised alarms in local projects seeking Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification — a standard for environmentally sustainable buildings.
In Multnomah County, City of Roses was hired as a subcontractor on the Albina, Midland, North Portland and Holgate library renovation and expansion projects from 2023 to 2025. County auditors in October found that the company reported recycling exact amounts of specific waste materials from sites, despite failing to weigh the debris.
LEED certified projects must earn a certain number of points, awarded for green construction practices like recycling. A project must earn 40-49 points to be certified, and additional points can earn higher ratings.
One of the ways construction projects earn points toward LEED certification is to recycle large portions of their construction and demolition waste — at least 50% for one point and 75% for two points.
Precise weights are part of the environmental requirements for the certification. Instead of doing that, the company eyeballed loads of waste arriving at its facility, auditors found. The U.S. Green Building Council does not allow recycling figures to be based on “visual assessments” such as the ones City of Roses acknowledged to auditors that it used.
The measurements didn’t jeopardize the LEED certification for the four projects because they racked up enough points elsewhere, but the auditor recommended the county provide more oversight to ensure compliance with recycling standards.
City of Roses similarly fell short in a city project. A good government hotline tip last spring accused the business of falsifying reports and failing to comply with Portland’s green building requirements when working on the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion project.
Portland city code requires general contractors on all building projects over $50,000 to make sure at least 75% of solid waste generated by the projects is recycled. The treatment plant building was also up for LEED certification.
The city reviewed the complaint but did not launch an investigation of the recycling rates, saying that went beyond its responsibilities. In a hotline report from December, officials wrote only that it was not possible to determine if the company fudged recycling reports but flagged that the business’ practice of visually estimating construction and demolition recycling quantities did not meet LEED standards. The city did not claim points for recycling construction debris but got the green certification regardless, documents show.
Portland officials mentioned in a response to the hotline report that “material market fluctuations can cause difficulty in meeting the 75% recycling rate” required by city code.
For non-LEED projects and day to day hauling, Metro has historically allowed recyclers to use visual estimates in reports on how much material they store or move, including City of Roses, but in December the Metro Council approved unique reporting requirements for the company.
In another instance in 2024, Metro, acting on a tip, had found that other companies originally hired to dispose of the debris from a Beaverton school project were taking it directly to the dump, in violation of Metro’s requirement for construction and demolition debris to first be taken to a material recovery facility such as City of Roses for sorting and recycling. The companies told Metro they would take the materials to City of Roses. But Metro then found that City of Roses was simply weighing the loads, without sorting out any recyclables, before the debris was trucked off to a landfill.
It’s unclear from public records why the materials would be weighed but not processed. However, on March 5, 2024, a Metro employee emailed City of Roses chief operating officer AJ Simpson that although “Metro did not require COR to cease this activity” previously, going forward Metro expected it and all recyclers to actually sort all construction and demolition debris.
Millions in Metro contracts, and still under investigation
It’s unclear what the added scrutiny will mean for City of Roses in the year ahead.
In December, the Metro Council slapped on a stipulation that City of Roses must adhere to more precise measuring standards as part of its renewed franchise agreement, according to Christensen, the agency spokesperson.
City of Roses promised improvements to prevent similar issues down the road. And Simpson said the company is working with a consultant to do a full review of its reporting processes, and has started producing monthly commodity reviews for internal use.
All told, City of Roses has $5.5 million in contracts to manage waste disposal at sites like the Oregon Zoo, Portland’5 Center for the Arts and Oxbow Park, among other locations.
The largest of those deals is a combined $2.75 million contract for Metro’s Report Illegal Dumping patrol building, the now-closed MetroPaint building and the St. John’s Landfill, records show.
Metro officials are probing into “additional questions around City of Roses’ procedures,” according to Christensen, the spokesperson. That is expected to wrap up in June, but Metro provided no additional details.
If Metro unearths more compliance problems with City of Roses, it could pull its contracts with the Portland hauler, officials said. But it’s rare for Metro to end such deals, Christensen noted, even though contracts typically allow it if the contractor does not perform the required work.
Simpson assured Metro officials in the December meeting that City of Roses was working to make all the necessary improvements to avoid problems moving forward.
“We are not running from accountability,” Simpson said at the time. “In fact, we are leaning into it.”
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