MSNBC is lucky to have Steve Kornacki because his extensive experience covering New Jersey politics is paying off in spades now that its time to report on the intricate ways in which the governor’s office interacts with Democratic politicians, the Port Authority, real estate developers, and high-powered law firms. On his program Up With Steve this morning, Mr. Kornacki spent more than twenty minutes explaining how a mere four acres of land in the northern end of Hoboken became a hostage for the whole city’s Superstorm Sandy relief.
I can’t explain it any more concisely, but the barest-bone summary is that Governor Christie wanted Hoboken to approve a three block area for redevelopment, which is a technical term that would allow for huge subsidies. The three blocks are owned by the Rockefeller Group, a New York-based developer. When the mayor of Hoboken, Dawn Zimmer, would not go along with approving just those three blocks for redevelopment, Governor Christie sent two members of his administration to make a blunt demand, which was that Sandy relief would not be forthcoming until the real estate plan was approved. Importantly, Ms. Zimmer kept a journal in which she documented these threats at the time, and she provided that journal to MSNBC:
Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with msnbc.
The mayor, Dawn Zimmer, hasn’t approved the project, but she did request $127 million in hurricane relief for her city of Hoboken – 80% of which was underwater after Sandy hit in October 2012. What she got was $142,000 to defray the cost of a single back-up generator plus an additional $200,000 in recovery grants.
In an exclusive interview, Zimmer broke her silence and named Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, Christie’s community affairs commissioner, as the two officials who delivered messages on behalf of a governor she had long supported.
“It’s not fair for the governor to hold Sandy funds hostage for the city of Hoboken” because he wants support for one private developer, she said Saturday on UP w/ Steve Kornacki.
It’s significant that Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno is implicated in this scheme because she would succeed Chris Christie in the governor’s office if he felt it necessary to resign.
This story gives me a bit of an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, this is North Jersey we are talking about, and Mayor Zimmer comes off as if she were literally “born yesterday.” On the other hand, she originally became mayor because her predecessor accepted a bribe in return for giving favorable treatment to a man posing as a real estate developer, and that sting operation was run by Christie’s U.S. Attorney’s office. The irony there is quite rich.
Finally, even though it’s nothing new for a New Jersey governor to throw his weight around to smooth a redevelopment project, holding up disaster relief funding is unconscionable, showing again that the Christie administration has taken traditional Jersey corruption to a whole new level.
Enjoying this so very much.
It was an absolutely fascinating expose of the machinations of New Jersey politics under Christie. I was spellbound watching it. Kudos to Kornacki. Great work.
Me. Riveting. Which is quite a trick considering all the moving parts.
why are you ambivalent? we fought long and hard to elect Dawn Zimmer.
http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2009/06/runoff_hoboken_mayoral_electio.html
If the issue is that the Solomon Dwek sting put Zimmer in office – whatever the issues w. Christie and Cammarano were, there were issues of suddenly appearing ballots that led to Cammarano’s win in the first place. have never seen a Zimmer Christie connection suggested;
Well, I mean, she seems confused that the governor would go to bat for a developer, which is like the scene in Casablanca where Rick’s little casino is exposed and Captain Renault says “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
Maybe if she wasn’t acting like she just flew in from the sticks, I’d feel less ambivalent about it. I mean, she’s from Jersey, right? She has some idea how business in conducted in North Jersey, right?
It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.
So, good for her for not playing along, but she could show a little more sophistication and less surprise.
In any case, the bottom line for Hoboken is that they get the shaft for their mayor’s Mr. Smith routine, which is the corrupting tradeoff that Christie forces on everyone. To do it with hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster relief is taking the routine to a whole new level.
But this is what an honest and effective person does. She said no to the offer, she documented it, and she didn’t go public with it until the time was exactly right. Whether or not she was shocked at the time is irrelevant.
well she grew up in NH. she ran as a Mr Smith candidate.
I watched the link to interview. very good. Zimmer ran on the flooding issue for City Council first. development was crazy and just making the flooding situation worse-as Kornacki points out. there’s lots and lots of there there. but with CC being a republican, and after Solomon Dwek sting, it’s possible to think initially he was out of the usual loops [though obviously he had other issues]
I also think tying the usual development shenanigans to Sandy $$ is a new level of corruption/ political blackmail
We need more Zimmers then. Especially in New Jersey.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was done generally, but tying it to Sandy relief is I think, enough to be shocking considering Christie’s Sandy PR.
yes, I agree. she navigated the usual players very well, as in the Kornacki story, emphasizing the fairness and transparency aspects of development options. years of sad, lost battles on the part of the citizenry precede that sadly to say [did I mention that it’s sad?]
I’m guessing, re: comments above, she was “waiting for the right time” to talk about this; it sounds, also from early NYTimes report on beginning of Bridgegate, that other stories also were just gearing up in anticipation of Christie to run in the primary.
“She has some idea how business in conducted in North Jersey, right?”
I don’t think you realize just how horrible this sounds to the rest of us.
No… I don’t know how corruption flourishes. I think those of you who “know how business is conducted” are… not nice people.
So sad… your perverse sense of right and wrong is shameful.
like the traffic jam, this is an instance where citizenry bears the impact directly. this is a different level of wrongdoing, though I actually don’t know either of instances of governor being directly involved with city development issues.
a couple links
pay to play has been an ongoing issue as is the devlopment of the waterfront
http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2011/02/hoboken_city_council_parces_zi.html
http://betterwaterfront.org/in-hoboken-citizen-initiated-ordinances-bring-an-end-to-pay-to-play-camp
aign-cash/
I saw it. It’s also of note that the Rockefeller group was far from being the largest property owner of the subject 19 blocks in Hoboken. It owns something like 2 1/2 blocks. Holding up the Sandy funds is unconscionable.
And the other property owners had organized, rejected the bought-and-paid-for report, and were planning to sue Hoboken if the Rockefeller Group got special treatment. Zimmer said she was trapped because she realized if she played along with Christie, she’d have to testify in court about how the deal was made. So it was perjury or watching Hoboken suffer for her honesty – until Bridgegate presented another viable option.
The danger is that there is SO much in the Christie Corruption Cornucopia that we won’t get to the really dark stuff at the bottom. What is the really dark stuff at the bottom? How about dirty NY/NJ US Attorneys (Christie, Mukasey, Giuliani, Freeh, Chertoff, Alito), a slush funding corrupt Port Authority, and a Port Authority piece of property where the greatest false flag terrorist attack in US history occurred? Connect a few dots and we are there. Ha! I saw Silverstein has been implicated in this now.
Yep, this is the BIG one, folks. Keep pulling those threads and we wind up with the BIG, BIG picture.
Good time to remember the story of the Sandy funds; the role that Feds played; the huge fight in Congress and those who laid out what and where the funds were to go to. Rand Paul may have a word to say. And of course the question remains, who got Hoboken’s Sandy funds if they didn’t?
Kornacki isn’t done. The new face of the MSNBC contributor on that panel this morning was about as succinct as one can be when she whacked the panel down as it tried to move into the ‘political juice’ scenario rather than focusing on a community that got less than 1% of the redesign, rebuild funds it was entitled to.
And it was intriguing to ponder the question raised of why is Cuomo so quiet?
Nothing I’ve heard or seen about the younger Cuomo would indicate that he wouldn’t fall right in line (and what happened to his father? You know, the one who seemed to have great heart and who many wanted to run for President).
Ponder the implications of my comment posted just above yours. There is a really BIG common thread of the evil running through this Christie saga. He was their boy. The NY Money folks, their BIG media, and the neocons were perfectly aligned to put Christie forward. Who else to represent their interests? A teabagger? Too crazy and independent. They needed a MADE man. A man is ‘made’ when they themselves have killed, thus stepping irrevocably over the line. In US politics, nothing is more ‘made’ than joining the 911 insiders club. Christie had what it takes, BIG balls.
Remember what Goebbels said about the BIG Lie. It’s easier to put over than the little lie because most people can’t fathom that level of depravity. ‘oh, they wouldn’t do that’
Will we remain frayers to the end?
Not ready to go quite that big yet, but since the Port Authority has a budget equal to 26 states the investigators need to keep it front and center.
But at what point is the investigation too big for them? At what point does it threaten to pull THEM in.
Many times I wish we could appoint a citizens investigation commission. Regular people with expertise in certain areas would have less chance of having political corruption in their pasts… unfortunately being regular people they’d be that much more likely to accept bribes since they aren’t rich like a lot of pols.
But if you rotate pols around too fast for them to corrupt then they don’t get expertise. And campaign finance is apparently a Constitutional pipe dream.
I don’t really know how to truly fight corruption absent some sort of authoritarian leader.
I grew up in New Jersey and the Port Authority was always around, so to speak, but I had no idea. As far as the BIG picture, I know it’s hard for many to accept. One small access point that opens up with the Christie Corruption Cornucopia would be to investigate the circumstances around Larry Silverstein’s leases with the Port Authority. Holy Smokes! Those two have been dancing for decades. I had no idea until I just googgled. From wiki….
And then there was the insurance settlement of 4.5 Billion or so. That must have been pretty sweet for Larry because his personal investment in securing the lease was 14 million.
I lost the link where it was saying that Christie’s
Samson and Silverstein had dealings. Now that’s BIG!
One of Christie’s comments re Sandy relief funds from Congress….
And we have a responsibility to make things happen. LOL, You can’t make this stuff up.
You can’t make this stuff up.
No, you can’t. What an absolute hypocrite. This is flat out nauseating.
More: did not see the program so not sure what to write about development [also my computer is messed up so it’s difficult to comment], but development has been an issue for decades. Until the 90’s Hoboken was full of abandoned factory sites. strategy for development has been an issue ever since including keeping the the space livable, parks and green space, what to do about flooding [much of the city is at sea level], Zimmer was from the outset supported “curb development” voting blocs
Richard Nixon served no prison time, a fact which (it is now clear in hindsight) ended the perception of the rule of law in the United States. So not only is it no longer possible to send the culprits in this case to prison; it would no longer even send a message, it would not have a deterrent effect, it would be seen as a sort of accident.
This is what happens when you let people get away with sh!t. We got where we are by letting people off the hook.
By no means was Richard Nixon the first corrupt politician to get off easy. It’s been going on forever. As an example, President Truman appointed William O’Dwyer, the 100th mayor of New York City, as ambassador to Mexico to put him beyond the reach of both federal and state corruption investigations. Truman obviously owed O’Dwyer or someone indebted to O’Dwyer a big favor.
Things are probably less corrupt now than they were then. Can’t imagine a president getting away with something like this today, with the internet and cable news running 24/7.
Japan is a key ally in Asia, they have slowly escalating disputes with China and are making noises about militarizing (slightly). And yet Obama appoints Caroline Kennedy who can’t speak Japanese?
I’m not suggesting it’s anything like avoiding prosecution but it’s a clear favor for someone who has no obvious qualifications to the post.
It’s my understanding that some countries, like Japan, prefer an ambassador with close personal ties to the US president, as Caroline has w Obama, as Mondale and Roos did w Clinton, etc. I doubt too that many — any? — recent US Amb to Japanese spoke the language before their assignment. Our top career diplomat over there should know the language though, but not necessarily the Amb, who has long been chosen from our political ranks.
It seems too that CK’s appointment could give a small boost to Japanese women, who aren’t exactly treated as equals in the work world over there.
Have the Japanese complained about her as lacking language skills?
The factors that make Nixon’s case unique are that he was essentially caught red-handed and, in effect, pled out by resigning. His pardon was an overwhelmingly unmistakeable statement that accountability is selective — and that, therefore, there could thenceforward be no accountability at all. I am not aware of an earlier historical parallel.
I live in Illinois, and our former governor is spending 14 years in prison.
Some day we will realize that America is a corrupt and despicable society completely unworthy of our liberal compassion and good works.
Someday? How about now? In fact…how about way back when the investigation of JFK’s assassination began to smell really bad? It is…and has been…the media’s most important job to cover up the lies that have allowed massive criminality to flourish in this country on almost every big-money level. Until a certain percentage of American voters recognizes the complicity and importance of the corporate-owned mass media in the ongoing failure of this nation, nothing is going to be happen but more business as usual. No matter what that percentage may be, the day that just one more American realizes what has happened here…the one more that pushes that number above the needed percentage…on that day the scales will begin to fall from the eyes of a media-blinded population and things will begin to change.
Until then?
Nada.
Bet on it.
AG
Such a day will never come.
Maybe. It will only take one lie too many about something serious…a nuke accident, a natural disaster, a real oil shortage that would cripple the food and gas/heating oil supply system or a Chris Christie-like faux pas on a national or international scale…to break the spell. As it is, huge swaths of the country…those who have been lied to without consequence or punishment so long that they have ceased to believe anything that they are told (the poor of every race and culture)…do not pay any attention whatsoever to what they are told to believe. How long will people be able to swallow that bullshit “Our loyal troops. Honor them!!!” advertising line when those troops ares being caught out in crime after crime? How long can the security apparatus remain effective once people know about its transgressions against us?
Maybe you are right. Time will tell.
So it goes.
Hunker down and wait. We’ll see soon enough. No empire lives forever.
bet on it.
Later…
AG
Tuesday Christie is set to be sworn in. Buono must be fit to be tied. One more day of Kornacki then Rachel on Monday and Christie’s arrogance may have 2nd thoughts.