when it comes to bridges.. republicans seem to get into trouble...
this time big bully Christie tried to settle the score with a local mayor ..
this time big bully Christie tried to settle the score with a local mayor ..
TRENTON, N.J. — The issue at hand is small, even for local politics: the sudden closure, over four days, of a pair of access lanes from Fort Lee, N.J., onto the George Washington Bridge into New York.
In September, two of Christie’s top appointees at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey ordered the lanes abruptly shut to traffic, causing days of gridlock in Fort Lee. Democrats allege that the move was political retribution against the town’s mayor, Mark Sokolich (D), for not endorsing Christie for reelection this year.
Close associates of Christie's who work at the Port Authority, a gargantuan $2.57 billion agency that controls the bridges and tunnels between New York and New Jersey along with area airports and the World Trade Center.
Without notice to the public or the agency's executive director, the Port Authority abruptly closed a set of local roads leading to the George Washington Bridge -- the busiest crossing in the world, handling 100 million vehicles a year -- causing massive traffic snarls in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Democrats believe the shutdown was an act of political retaliation because the town's mayor, Mark Sokolich, refused to endorse Christie's re-election.
Nobody is admitting guilt, and Christie calls the political-payback accusation "crazy." But two political appointees at the agency who are close to Christie -- one is a childhood friend -- have resigned. "Mistakes were made," the governor acknowledged in an hourlong press conference.
The idea that Christie might have inflicted pain on an entire town to settle a political score with its mayor also plays into an unflattering image of Christie as a bully -- a reputation underscored by videos that show the governor berating teachers, journalists and town hall participants.
Here in Trenton, the charge has been led by state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D), a 78-year-old widow who has been among Christie’s most aggressive and indefatigable opponents. (After Christie once urged reporters to “take the bat” to Weinberg, the senator displayed two mini Louisville Sluggers on her office mantel — a smaller bat engraved with Christie’s name and a bigger one engraved with hers.)
“Do I think Governor Christie called the Port Authority and said, ‘Close lanes!’? No,” Weinberg said. “But do I think he’s helped to create an atmosphere where his political operatives think they’re free to use the biggest bridge in the world for punitive action against somebody? I have to believe that it has to do with politics, because there is no other rational explanation for it.”
Still, the bridge incident has invited weeks of public scrutiny of Christie’s administration, including the depths of his political patronage at the Port Authority, which has a multibillion-dollar budget bigger than that of many states.
“The Port Authority has been a haven of patronage under this present administration, much more so than the previous governors have used it,” said Republican former state senator William E. Schluter, who is regarded as a champion of government ethics.
The two officials who resigned were political intimates of Christie. Bill Baroni, a former state senator and rising Republican star, served as deputy executive director at a salary of $290,000, while David Wildstein, a high school friend of Christie’s and a former mayor of their home town of Livingston, made $150,000 per year as director of interstate capital projects. A 2012 profile described Wildstein as Christie’s “eyes and ears within the byzantine agency.”
Wildstein ordered the lane closure beginning Sept. 6. Bridge workers later testified at the state legislature that they went along with the plan because they feared for their jobs if they turned on Wildstein, who was seen as carrying out the governor’s wishes.
Officials initially claimed the lanes were closed as part of a traffic study, but no evidence has surfaced to support that explanation.
“It was a juvenile high school prank orchestrated by a high school classmate of the governor’s,” said state assemblyman John S. Wisniewski (D), who has led the legislative probe as chairman of the assembly transportation committee.
Wisniewski, a former state party chairman, drew a comparison to “The Sopranos,” the HBO drama about a New Jersey mobster. The bridge incident, he said, reveals the “bizarre, bare-knuckled tactics” of Christie and his “loyal pitbull” appointees.
Initially, Christie tried to brush aside any suggestion that he had anything to do with Fort Lee’s traffic nightmare. “Unbeknownst to everybody, I was actually the guy out there,” Christie joked at a Dec. 2 news conference. “I was in overalls and a hat. . . . I was the guy working the cones.”
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