Sunday, January 19, 2014

Hoboken Mayor: Christie Team Shook Us Down for Sandy Relief //GWBridgegate // TPM

GWBridgegate - A new element: lawyers and conflicts of interest
A63c8pvitw1vwm4tndjd

The investigative trail that began with GWBridgegate has moved south a few miles to Hoboken. The marsh land, valuable because it is a square mile fronting on the Hudson River opposite Greenwich Village, has long been the object of contention.  In Murray's Trustee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Company (1856)  the Supreme Court declared "due process of law" to be a limitation on the legislative and executive branches - meaning what the magna Carta called "the law of the land".   Swamped by the 14 foot tidal surge of  Hurricane Sandy, Hoboken became a salt pond, nearly every building damaged.   But according to the small city's mayor federal disaster relief was held hostage to approval of the project of a client of former state Attorney General David Samson'slaw firm.  Samson is Governor Chris Christie's appointee as Chairman of the  Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a powerful force in a city that is linked to Manhattan by the Port Authority PATH rail tunnel and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels on its south and north ends.  All three tunnels were completed flooded by Sandy.

The assertion by the Mayor paints Samson as dealing both for himself and Governor Christie.  Not the concern for all declared by the Governor in the state-funded "stronger than the storm" ads which prominently featured Christie, who has trumpeted himself as coming to the aid of storm-stricken New Jerseyans regardless of politics. - GWC

Hoboken Mayor: Christie Team Shook Us Down for Sandy Relief:
by Brian Murphy  //Baruch College CUNY
 "On MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki” this morning, Hoboken, N.J. mayor Dawn Zimmer offered an extraordinary account of her dealings with the administration of Governor Chris Christie concerning federal Hurricane Sandy relief aid. She described an effort by top state officials – the lieutenant governor and a cabinet member – to coerce Hoboken’s city government into fast-tracking approval of a proposed redevelopment project by withholding Sandy aid from the government and residents of her city. That project, she says she was told, was “very important to the governor.” And if she worked to get it approved, “the money would start flowing to you.” It just so happens that the proposed project in question is situated on three blocks of land owned by the Rockefeller Group, a client of the law firm of Wolff & Samson. That firm was founded by Christie confidante David Samson, a former state attorney general who Christie tapped to head his transition team in 2009. In 2011 the governor appointed Samson to become the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he remains today."
'via Blog this'

No comments:

Post a Comment