Hoboken Mayor: Christie Team Shook Us Down for Sandy Relief (Video at link)

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.

This is a riveting narrative, and I
encourage you to watch Steve?s
introduction at the top of the show and
his interview with Mayor Zimmer. Steve
and I have been collaborating and
reporting and trying to make sense of
this for more than a week. The package
itself was put together with an
extraordinary amount of shoe-leather
and hard work by Kornacki and staff,
including TPM alum Eric Kleefeld. During
the second hour of the show, Steve
asked for analysis and context from a
panel that included me ? a former
political reporter in New Jersey and a
Baruch College - CUNY history professor
who studies the intersection of
economics and politics.

Both Steve and I have personal ties to
individuals involved in the recent stories
coming out of New Jersey, and we?ve
been collaborating to make sense of
recent revelations, including but not
limited to those involving the now-infamous lane closures at the George
Washington Bridge that were undertaken
at the behest of aides to Governor
Christie and his appointees at the Port
Authority. We proposed a theory about
those September lane closures involving
a redevelopment project that was
discussed on MSNBC last week and
which I later wrote up for TPM.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/hob ... -us-down-for-sandy-relief

Fatboy is toast, deal with it!

Dawn Zimmer ?@dawnzimmernj Aug 20
@jennaportnoy @govchristie He has done a great job for NJ & Hoboken. We have a non-partisan mayoral election on Nov 5th.

Could it be that the people of Hoboken and Jersey City are now not electing idiots and having a higher expectation from their prospective Mayors!

A Mayor that stands their ground with a transparent view point, exposes problems and has a high ethical and moral disposition will always get my vote.

If anything, gentrification has imported a different calibre of people into our cities and the 'old school' politicians are being caught out.

Reminder about an event in April:

Quote:

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/ ... oes_sandy_oversigh_1.html


All sorts of things are going to come out.

What about the guts it took for Dawn to step up with this and put her arm in the GOP & media wood chipper? Unbelievable, even if she waited till he was wounded, and people would be more credulous of her story.

I'm of little doubt that Christie's behavior can be traced back to his school days.

Another connection between the Christie administration, political appointees at the PA, and real estate corruption, this is turning into the common theme. The use of Sandy's funds is absolutely despicable, the governor through passive or active corruption has absolutely lost all respect in my eyes. At a time when the PA is milking people with fare increases, their top official starting with Mr. Samson needs to be held fully accountable including in a court of law.

Christie was saved because of an act of God and the support of the FEMA and Obama administration, his true actions are now coming to light. Like Zimmer and some of us here I suppose, I can't help but oscillating between anger and disappointment.

As for these who said it is Jersey and get over it, let me remind you what modern technology is demonstrating in these case through capturing and mining information. Keep your personal recorders turned on.

this is a lengthy description of the Hoboken debacle, but well worth reading to the end.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/hob ... -us-down-for-sandy-relief

Christie is the new boss, same as the old boss.

Hoboken mayor claims Christie administration held city's Sandy recovery funds 'hostage' to help developer By Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger on January 18, 2014 at 9:23 AM HOBOKEN ? Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer was told by top officials in Gov. Chris Christie?s administration that she would get funds to help her city recover from Hurricane Sandy only if she expedited a politically-connected development project, Zimmer said today. Zimmer, a Democrat who has long been an ally of Christie, made the explosive accusation this morning on national television, telling MSNBC host Steve Kornacki that she was pressured by Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno, Richard Constable, the current commissioner of community affairs, and Lori Grifa, the former commissioner. Christie's administration denies the accusations. Guadagno, Zimmer said, pulled her aside during an event in Hoboken in May and made the connection explicit. Zimmer recalled the interaction in her diary, which was quoted on the show: ?She pulls me aside and says that I need to move forward with the Rockefeller project. It?s very important to the governor. The word is that you are against it and you need to move forward or we are not going to be able to help you. I know it?s not right. These things should not be connected. But they are, she says. ?If you tell anyone I said it, I will deny it.?? This video gets interesting at 7:00 minutes in: The Star-Ledger MSNBC