FAQFAQ   SearchSearch  MemberlistMemberlistRegisterRegister  ProfileProfile   Log in[ Log in ]  Flint Talk RSSFlint Talk RSS

»Home »Open Chat »Political Talk  Â»Flint Journal »Political Jokes »The Bob Leonard Show  

Flint Michigan online news magazine. We have lively web forums


FlintTalk.com Forum Index > Political Talk

Topic: Christie-"It wasn't me"
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next
  Author    Post Post new topic Reply to topic
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Ad firm head: We were asked about using Christie in post-Sandy campaign


By Chris Frates, CNN Investigative Correspondent

updated 1:38 PM EST, Wed January 15, 2014



Watch this video


Did Christie misuse Sandy relief aid?



STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Firm with lowest bid for post-Sandy campaign was asked about using Gov. Chris Christie, it says
"We didn't want to commit one way or the other," firm President Shannon Morris says
All members of the panel that picked the winning firm were part of the Christie administration
Morris' firm lost the contract to a company that charged about $2 million more




(CNN) -- The president of an advertising firm that lost a $25 million contract to create a marketing campaign promoting the Jersey Shore told CNN Tuesday that the evaluation committee asked her team whether they would be comfortable featuring New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the ads.

The news comes as federal investigators are looking into whether Christie improperly used some of that money to produce tourism ads that featured him and his family while he ran for re-election.

The New Jersey ad agency Sigma Group had the lowest bid on labor and markup costs but lost the contract to a firm charging about $2 million more.

Sigma Group President Shannon Morris told CNN that her team was asked during the pitch meeting "if we would be open to featuring Chris Christie in the ads."

"We didn't want to commit one way or the other. We were confident in the creative direction that we had presented. Our opinion was that maybe they knew something we didn't about the requirement or maybe they felt strongly for one reason or another that he should be included," she said. "We also wanted to stand behind the work that we had submitted that didn't feature the governor or any other celebrity."

It turns out that the committee evaluating the proposals is made up entirely of people who work for the Christie administration. And perhaps the most controversial of the members is Michele Brown, the chief executive of the state's Economic Development Authority.

She's one of the six voting members on the evaluation committee and has a long history with Christie. When Christie was U.S. attorney, Brown was a prosecutor. She resigned after revelations that Christie had given her a $46,000 loan in 2007 and had not reported it.

After resigning, Brown went into private law practice, but in 2012, Christie named her to her current post. CNN was not able to reach Brown for comment.

The other voting members are also tied to Christie. Two work with Brown at the Economic Development Authority. Another is chief of staff to Christie's lieutenant governor. And the two others are representatives from the community affairs and treasury departments, all of which ultimately answer to Christie.

Some critics slammed Christie over the summer for starring in taxpayer-funded ads as he was running for re-election in November, arguing it gave him an unfair advantage. But others argued that he was the face of the Sandy recovery, so it made sense to put him in the ads.

On Tuesday, the office the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general issued a statement about the inquiry, first reported by CNN, that said it had begun an audit in September "to examine whether the State administered its Tourism Marketing Program in accordance with applicable departmental and Federal requirements."

The inspector general also said, "This is an audit and not an investigation of the procurement process." The inspector general uses the term "investigation" to denote a law enforcement probe.


Last edited by untanglingwebs on Thu Jan 16, 2014 7:11 am; edited 1 time in total
Post Thu Jan 16, 2014 6:52 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Asbury Park Press



Christie ally lacked background on 'Storm' contract, critics claim
$25M ad campaign featured governor, family in TV spots


Aug. 19, 2013 |

Written by
Bob Jordan
@BobJordanAPP


RENTON — Michele A. Brown, a former top aide to Gov. Chris Christie who heads the state agency overseeing the “Stronger than the Storm” $25-million tourism campaign, voted to award the contract even though she was unqualified to review such bids, critics of the deal claim.

Brown, the chief executive officer of the N.J. Economic Development Authority and the ranking administration official on the state contract selection committee in March, voted with five other panel members to approve the campaign, an Asbury Park Press review of bid documents found. The TV commercials feature Christie and his family and have played in New Jersey and neighboring states. The project is funded by federal disaster aid approved by Congress after superstorm Sandy.

Brown lacked a background in business development, marketing or tourism when she became head of the EDA in October on Christie’s recommendation, according to her past work history posted on the authority website. EDA officials did not respond to a request for more information about Brown’s experience. Fourteen authority board directors — nearly all are gubernatorial appointees or administration members — voted unanimously to approve Brown for the job.

The TV commercials, produced and distributed by the East Rutherford-based MWW Group public relations firm and subcontractor Brushfire, have been criticized by state Democrats as unfair. They say the ads give the Republican governor extra exposure during a gubernatorial election year.

The evaluation committee ranked MWW best for its proposal, and second in cost. The MWW team is charging $4.7 million in labor and media mark-up costs to run the campaign, the committee said, $2.2 million above what was sought by the other finalist in the bidding, the Sigma Group advertising agency and partner Weber Shandwick. Sigma’s plans didn’t include a feature role for the governor.

The review committee narrowed the selection to two in the final phase of the process. Two of the losing bidders, both of whom were not invited to the finals, submitted rates that were higher than what MWW ultimately charged, according to public documents.

MWW officials declined to be interviewed for this story and requested all questions to be submitted in writing.

After the Press submitted the questions Friday, an attorney representing MWW, Kerrie L. Campbell, responded with an 11-page letter to attorneys for the newspaper’s parent company stating that the questions and previous inquiries “signal bias and a pre-determined story falsely saying or suggesting that MWW improperly secured the Jersey Shore Ad Campaign contract based on political influence.” The Press offered to post the entire letter online for the public to see, but MWW declined.

The evaluation committee reviewed markups and quality of work, showing that MWW had the higher service charges. MWW contends its overall bid, including media buys, was lower than Sigma’s. The final total cost could not be obtained from EDA documents.

Hollis R. Towns, executive editor and vice president of news for the Press, said the facts have been accurately and fairly reported since the first report was published Aug. 4.

“The residents of New Jersey deserve an unflinching view of how their tax dollars are being spent,” Towns said. “Our body of work on this issue reflects our ongoing efforts to accurately and fairly report on the Shore’s recovery efforts.”

Critics weigh in
Brown was a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey but resigned that post in 2009 amid controversy over a loan of $46,000 from Christie. The loan was given in 2007 when Christie was a U.S. attorney and she was a subordinate in his office. Christie’s failure to disclose the loan became an issue in his first gubernatorial campaign in 2009. The loan has since been repaid.

Brown makes $225,000 as CEO and is paid more than Christie, who makes $175,000.

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, who chairs the Senate Economic Growth Committee, said Brown’s participation tainted the bidding process. Lesniak said Brown “had no business making contract evaluations in an area she’s brand new in.”

Shannon Morris, the president of runner-up Sigma Group, faulted the state for “not having the people with the right experience to make decisions on what to do with $25 million in Sandy recovery money.”

Morris said Brown and other committee members overlooked the proposed contribution of her company’s partner, Weber Shandwick, a marketing firm that helped to rebuild the New Orleans tourism business after Hurricane Katrina.

“The MWW bid didn’t have disaster experience. Weber Shandwick had that experience and that should have played heavily into any decision about Sandy recovery,” Morris said. “The fact that Michele Brown or other members of the committee didn’t recognize that, or didn’t have the experience to see that, doesn’t sit right with me.”

MWW’s attorney, Campbell said, MWW’s proposal was “significantly and demonstrably superior to those of its competitors, as the evaluation committee determined.”

“MWW’s 180-page technical proposal presented an integrated and comprehensive campaign that included public relations, television and radio ads, digital media, billboards, major summer kick-off events, dozens of weekly events, and social media,” Campbell said. “The proposal discussed target audiences, geographic scope, specific phases of the campaign, specific media vehicles, and very specific information on the proposed team.”

Further, Campbell claimed MWW’s proposed price was $1.3 million lower than the Sigma and Weber Shandwick bid.

“MWW proposed an overall price of $22,255,000, compared to Weber Shandwick’s proposed price of $23,515,000. The overall proposed price is clearly delineated in the proposals,” Campbell wrote in an e-mail. “The total price is a combination of the advertising budget (including production costs), a markup, and labor costs.”

Sigma can’t do anything about the bidding results now. When a state contract is awarded, there’s a 10-day period to lodge a protest. MWW spokeswoman Shannon Eis said the campaign and the TV commercials are scheduled to end Sept. 1.

Lack of qualifications?
State law covering government contracts says that “in all cases, persons appointed to an evaluation committee shall have the relevant experience necessary to evaluate the project.”

That was underscored in a 2010 report on best practices for contract awards from state Comptroller A. Matthew Boxer, who wrote that “members of an evaluation committee should be sufficiently qualified to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals submitted.”

Lesniak accused Christie of cronyism when he recommended Brown for the leadership job at the EDA last year, saying, “As competent as she may be, she has no, none, zero experience in economic development.”

Lesniak, in a telephone interview last week, said his feelings haven’t changed.

“I was very vocal, and publicly so, about Michele Brown’s lack of qualifications to be executive director of the EDA and the governor putting one of his close buddies there to use the agency for his political benefit,” he said.

Lesniak said the TV ads put Democrat Barbara Buono at a disadvantage in the Nov. 5 gubernatorial election and said the governor’s claim that the marketing money is being used wisely is dubious. The campaign is intended to drum up tourism in the first summer since superstorm Sandy hit the state.

Christie, during a news conference last week, said members of the business community “love the campaign. The campaign has been great.”

Lesniak said the entire affair “is just another attempt by Christie to make sure that federal dollars that came from Washington go to his political benefit. The ingredients are there to make it his Achilles’ heel but he has just enough hubris to feel like he can get away with it and use Sandy for political advantage.”

Brown's background
The EDA website lists Brown’s work history as being Christie’s appointments counsel for two years and serving 18 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, New Jersey district, specializing in white collar prosecutions that included corporate fraud, bank fraud and tax and money laundering offenses.

Brown did not respond to a request for comment. Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak did not respond directly to an inquiry about Brown’s qualifications.

“She is an intelligent, engaging, well-educated and capable individual and attorney, who has excelled in all that she’s done through her professional life,” Drewniak said. He has said that MWW’s proposal gave the state the best value for its money and that MWW had the necessary contacts to launch the campaign in a very short time frame.

It’s not the first time MWW — which has made 234 corporate contributions totaling $201,300 to candidates and political committees from both parties in New Jersey since 1987 — has been involved in a controversial contract bidding.

In 2006, MWW lobbied for GTech Corp., a vendor seeking a lottery contract, at the same time it was handling public relations work for the Lottery Commission.

MWW’s vendor won the pact but, after a protest by losing bidder Scientific Games International, New Jersey decided to toss out the contract award because of a “potential conflict,” according to a Treasury Department ruling.

The state treasurer at the time, Bradley Abelow, in his order wrote that “the public may be left with a perception that MWW could have used its role as a state contractor to attempt to influence the outcome of the procurement process.” The case prompted the Treasury Department to begin requiring bidders to disclose any possible conflicts of interest in application documents.

There were no sanctions imposed on MWW and company officials said at the time their roles as lobbyist and promoter never crossed.

In the weeks before making its pitch for the Stronger than the Storm contract, MWW hired the former executive director of the Burlington County Republican Committee and acquired a government affairs firm headed by a longtime GOP strategist. Rich Levesque, the former Burlington leader, was billed as having “strong relationships over the years with many of Governor Christie’s closest advisers as well as many of his cabinet appointees,” according to bid documents MWW submitted to state officials.

The moves allowed the firm “to deepen our team on both sides of the aisle,” MMW President Michael Kempner said at the time, a reference to the upgraded Republican credentials.

But Campbell, the MWW attorney, said previous reporting by the Press of the additions and Kempner’s comment “falsely communicate the message that the state awarded MWW the contract at a higher rate at least in part because MWW hired a ‘top GOP insider before winning (the) contract.’ ”

William Murray, MWW’s executive vice president/public affairs, said, “Our purchase of Capital Public Affairs or our hiring of Rich Levesque was unrelated to our proposal and occurred before the tourism campaign request for proposals was announced or had come to our attention. This had no impact on the ad campaign proposal. Neither Capital Public Affairs or Mr. Levesque had any involvement in the proposal or program.”

Murray also defended the company’s campaign contributions, saying “In the exercise of our First Amendment rights in our democracy, we support quality elected officials and candidates of both political parties. While MWW’s principal, Michael Kempner, is a leading Democrat, MWW is a non-partisan firm.”

Kempner, MWW’s founder, hosted a political fundraiser for President Barack Obama at his home in Cresskill in 2010 and “bundled” — the term for collecting donations from friends and associates — almost $3.1 million in campaign funds for the Democrat in 2011 and 2012.

MWW hasn’t donated to Christie but its employees have, which is legal under laws covering state vendors. MWW employees donated $1,000 to Christie’s 2009 Republican gubernatorial primary campaign and $1,500 to his 2010 inaugural committee.

Campbell also asserted that MWW’s overall bid was lower in price than the bid from the Sigma and Weber Shandwick team but the evaluation committee report stated: “MWW/Brushfire’s cost quote was the second cost-ranked of all quotes, with a total proposed price of $4,682,375. The Committee considered that while another bidder presented a lower labor and media placement mark-up costs, the quality of MWW/Brushfire’s planned campaign overcame the difference in costs. The hourly rates submitted by MWW/Brushfire were also the second lowest on average among the bidders.”

State officials said their calculation was based on “final and best offers” supplied by MWW and Sigma/Weber Shandwick. MWW reported that its total labor costs as a percentage of $25 million would be 14.9 percent, compared to Sigma’s 8.3 percent. MWW said its media placement markup percentage would be 4.5 percent, compared to Sigma’s 2 percent.

However, Murray from MWW asserted that the state didn’t have all of Sigma’s information.

“Regarding the labor cost component of the proposal, MWW’s labor costs were related to the major events and public relations programs that we proposed to conduct every week, to garner earned media. In comparison, Weber Shandwick focused on advertising. Weber Shandwick’s labor and administrative costs primarily covered management of the advertising and only a vague media relations effort,” Murray said.“MWW’s labor costs included the budget for media production, whereas Weber Shandwick did not include a budget for production costs.”

Morris, of Sigma, said: “That’s not true. Our bid detailed all of our prices and the evaluation committee did not indicate any information was missing. Our offer was to run the campaign and plan and place media for less money.”

Bob Jordan 609-984-4343, bjordan@njpessmedia.
com
Post Thu Jan 16, 2014 7:15 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Washington Post Politics 1-18-2014

Flurry of subpoenas in New Jersey bridge flap



Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg - David Wildstein, former director of Interstate Capital Projects for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is one of more than a dozen people and organizations with ties to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who received a subpoena related to the investigation of lane closures at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee.



By Robert Costa, Published: January 17 E-mail the writer


Subpoenas were served Friday to more than a dozen people with ties to embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who is struggling to contain a burgeoning scandal over a days-long traffic jam last year.

A New Jersey General Assembly committee investigating the episode has asked 17 Christie associates to submit documents. Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D), the committee’s chairman, said the recipients will be called to testify before the panel in the coming weeks.

The list includes David Wildstein, a former Port Authority official who recently refused to testify before an assembly committee. Bill Stepien, Christie’s former political strategist, and Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s former deputy chief of staff — two Christie allies who were fired by the governor last week — also were served.

Additionally, a number of current Christie staffers — including chief of staff Kevin O’Dowd, deputy chief of staff Maria Comella and press secretary Michael Drewniak — were asked to produce materials. So was David Samson, the Port Authority’s chairman, who is regarded as one of Christie’s most influential political advisers.

Three organizations, including Christie’s gubernatorial office and his reelection campaign, were on the list as well.

The subpoenas are broad and require all relevant electronic and written correspondence to be presented.

The Christie administration has hired Randy Mastro, a high-profile defense attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, as counsel.

Wisniewski’s committee is one of two legislative probes looking into September’s lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, an apparent act of political retribution against a Democratic mayor. The state Senate’s committee expects to issue more subpoenas next week.

Alan Zegas, an attorney for Wildstein, said his client is eager to share fresh information. But before he speaks out, Wildstein is asking state and federal prosecutors to grant him immunity.

“If he is conferred immunity, my client will fully cooperate and share his story,” Zegas said. In the meantime, he added, Wildstein “intends to fully comply with his legal obligations and will voluntarily supply documents that do not have redactions.”

This month, Wildstein released partially redacted ­e-mails to the legislature regarding the bridge flap. The e-mails caused a political storm and led the Democratic-controlled state legislature to launch two inquiries.

Wildstein later cited his right to plead the Fifth Amendment and declined to speak with lawmakers about the incident.

“My client is willing to speak freely if he is conferred immunity,” Zegas said. “If he is granted immunity, he will fully cooperate. In the meantime, he intends to fully comply with his legal obligations, and we will voluntarily supply more documents without redactions.”

Kevin Marino, an attorney for Stepien, said Friday that his client has “received the subpoena and is reviewing it.” He had no comment on whether Stepien would seek immunity before he testifies.

Christie, this year’s chairman of the Republican Governors Association, will travel to Florida this weekend to raise money for Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who faces a tough reelection race. On Sunday, Christie will attend a reception hosted by Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone.
Post Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:23 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Up With Steve Kornacki, 1/18/14, 9:17 AM ET


Christie camp held Sandy relief money hostage, mayor alleges

01/18/14 08:30 AM—Updated 01/18/14 09:46 AM


By Steve Kornacki




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.

Constable and Christie – through spokespersons – deny Zimmer’s claims.

“Mayor Zimmer has been effusive in her public praise of the Governor’s Office and the assistance we’ve provided in terms of economic development and Sandy aid,” Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak wrote in a statement. “What or who is driving her only now to say such outlandishly false things is anyone’s guess.”

But Zimmer’s statements and documentation suggest that Christie’s administration – hailed for what seemed like a heroic response to Hurricane Sandy – in fact refused to help some of the neediest.

Zimmer’s interview comes on the heels of a scandal in which other members of Christie’s inner circle conspired to create huge traffic swells, possibly in an act of political retribution, on another New Jersey town on the outskirts of Manhattan.

Christie, who sailed to re-election last year and has made no secret of his presidential ambitions, has denied any knowledge of the plot that shut down lanes at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, one of the most heavily trafficked in the country. His office and several former senior aides are currently the subject of a number of federal and state inquiries into what has become known as “Bridge-gate.”

In this account – supported by email, public records and Zimmer’s own diary entries – Christie’s inner circle was willing to cut off devastated constituents, muscle a friendly mayor and arrange public funds to finance a study for a project the governor supported.In a news conference last week, Christie rejected the notion that his administration engages in retribution or seeks political payback. Zimmer’s account paints a different portrait.

Zimmer claims they leaned on her twice to get their way. By the second encounter, Zimmer said – this time with Constable – the 45-year-old mayor and mother of two young children was despondent, according to her own notes.

“I was emotional about governor Christie,” she wrote in a diary entry she provided that is dated May 17, 2013. “I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something very different. This week I found out he’s cut from the same corrupt cloth that I have been fighting for the last four years.”

New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone told UP Saturday that Zimmer’s accusations suggest an “abuse of power” by the Christie administration. “This is something that the U.S. attorney should be looking at, and has to be further investigated,” he said.

Zimmer and Christie

Among the great ironies in the latest claims about the New Jersey governor is that without Christie, Zimmer would not likely have become the mayor of Hoboken.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken attends a joint press conference, Nov. 4, 2012 in Hoboken, N.J.
Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty

Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken attends a joint press conference, Nov. 4, 2012 in Hoboken, N.J.

What pole-vaulted her to the Mayor’s Office was a corruption scandal five years ago that enveloped a number of New Jersey politicians, including Zimmer’s predecessor. The investigation, which netted high profile convictions, was launched by the U.S. Attorney’s office then led by Christie. By the time of the arrests in 2009, Christie had already resigned from office to run for governor. But it helped boost his image as tough on corruption and crime.

For Zimmer, it was a welcome sign for New Jersey’s future and while she is a Democrat, she became a Christie supporter.

Swept into office from the city council, Zimmer inherited preliminary plans for a redevelopment project supported by the previous mayor.

The deal, as envisioned in 2008, would have awarded the Rockefeller Group – a New York developer – the right to redevelop a stretch of Hoboken. The project would have been eligible for tax incentives and it would have given the Rockefeller Group a much freer hand to build whatever they wanted while asking for millions in subsidies. If done right, it would have been an immensely lucrative deal in a town that has become a hip bedroom community of Manhattan.

Zimmer wasn’t against the deal but she wanted a professional study done on the projected development. The problem was that Hoboken’s finances were in disarray and she wanted to wait until the community was on sounder footing before spending the money for a study.

Zimmer told the Rockefeller Group they’d have to follow the same process as everybody else. That process couldn’t start until the city had enough money to pay professionals – planners and engineers – to study the issue.

The sides were at an impasse: the Rockefeller Group had big plans for hugely valuable land but Zimmer wasn’t moving forward on it yet.

The dispute became public and that’s when the Christie administration came in. Lori Grifa, who in 2010 served as Christie’s first community affairs commissioner, went to Hoboken that June and told Zimmer the administration might be able to help track down a source to pay for the study.

Soon enough, the Christie administration connected Zimmer to the Port Authority – the same jointly run New Jersey-New York agency that operates the George Washington Bridge, and is littered, on the New Jersey side, with Christie’s political appointees.

On Dec. 28, 2010, the Port Authority approved a $75,000 grant for the study but there was a catch. The Port Authority alone would choose the firm that conducted the study. In February 2011, it selected Clarke Caton Hintz – a reputable firm – to carry out the redevelopment study. It took a long time: the rest of 2011 and all through 2012, with Hurricane Sandy slowing things down.

Finally, in January 2013, the firm – which was tasked with evaluating a 19-block area – concluded that only the three blocks in which the Rockefeller Group had an ownership stake were fit for redevelopment.

Zimmer’s team was concerned. The landowners for the other 16 blocks were angry. They hired a lawyer who called the study “curious, disturbing and suspect to the say the least.”

The Rockefeller Group had its own representation – Wolff & Samson – the most powerful, politically connected law firm in all of New Jersey. It’s heavily involved in development deals and it’s known for its close, intimate ties to the Christie administration. It is the firm of David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority, the former attorney general of New Jersey, and a Christie appointee who’s coming under increasing scrutiny in the Bridge-gate scandal.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer (L) of Hoboken talks with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) prior to a joint press conference, Nov. 4, 2012 in Hoboken, N.J.
Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty

Mayor Dawn Zimmer (L) of Hoboken talks with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) prior to a joint press conference, Nov. 4, 2012 in Hoboken, N.J.

The firm is also now the professional home of Lori Grifa, the former Christie aide who now lobbies on behalf of the Rockefeller Group.

“Our client, The Rockefeller Group, has specifically asked us to speak with you regarding its property in Hoboken,” Grifa emailed an attorney employed by Hoboken in early 2012.

Over many months, Grifa kept up the heat on Hoboken, with calls and email pressing for a decision on the project.

By April 5, 2013, Joe Marazati, the Hoboken lawyer, wrote to Zimmer’s director of community development. “I am getting the full court press on this,” Marazati wrote in an email. “I have a voice mail from last night from Lori asking that I join a call this am with Lori and Dave Samson (chair of the PA) or suggest another time.”

Email obtained by msnbc shows a raft of exchanges between the town of Hoboken and the law firm until May 8 when the Hoboken Planning Board voted 4-3 against the project, finding “insufficient evidence” to designate those three blocks for redevelopment.

Instead, the board declared the entire 19 block area “in need of rehabilitation.” The designation didn’t make it impossible for the Rockefeller Group to get what it wanted but it was a strong signal that Zimmer’s team wasn’t going to roll over for them.

In a statement to msnbc, a spokesman for the Rockefeller Group said: “We have no knowledge of any information pertaining to this allegation. If it turns out to be true it would be deplorable.”

Sandy Aid

At the same time that the planning board voted against the study, Zimmer was applying for funding from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, a huge vault of money overseen by Christie to help communities hit hard by Sandy prepare themselves for the next storm.

A woman makes her way through the floodwaters, Oct. 31, 2012, in Hoboken, N.J.
Photo by Gary Hershorn/Reuters

A woman makes her way through the floodwaters, Oct. 31, 2012, in Hoboken, N.J.

After Sandy hit, in Hoboken’s darkest hour, Christie came to town and told residents they could count on him.

“I spoke to the mayor this morning, and I told her Hoboken is in the front of my mind, and whenever there’s any assistance that’s needed here, I’ll be here to help.

Christie’s people came back with less than 1% of what Hoboken had sought. With $250 million to disburse statewide, just $142,000 went to Hoboken – enough to help defray the cost of one backup generator to power a flood pump. Out of another pool of money for recovery grants – $1.8 billion in all – Hoboken received $200,000.Hoboken is perched above the mouth of the Hudson River, directly across from lower Manhattan. Following Christie’s visit, city officials submitted seven letters of intent for around $100 million in funds from programs the state was now running. Among the requests were money for storm surge coastal protection, money to buy properties to be used as open space and money for backup generators.

“Please governor,” Zimmer wrote in a letter following the decisions, “we need your help. I have tried to assure Hoboken residents that we would be treated fairly because you have always treated Hoboken fairly in the past.”

There was no response to that letter, dated May 8 of last year, the same day the Hoboken Planning Board did not adopt the redevelopment recommendation for the Rockefeller property.

Two days later, Zimmer got a call from the Lieutenant Governor, Kim Guadagno, who wanted to come to town to do an event at a ShopRite to spotlight businesses that had recovered from the storm.

On May 13, Guadagno and Zimmer met at the Hoboken ShopRite. That is where, Zimmer said, Guadagno delivered the first message about the relief aide.

Zimmer shared this diary entry which she said she wrote later that day. “At the end of a big tour of ShopRite and meeting, she pulls me aside with no one else around and says that I need to move forward with the Rockefeller project. It is 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, and if you tell anyone, I will deny it.”

The second warning, according to Zimmer, came four days later. She and Constable, who now led Christie’s department of community affairs, were seated together on stage for a public television special on Sandy recovery.

Again, Zimmer provided this diary entry from May 17, which she said captured the incident.

“We are mic’ed up with other panelists all around us and probably the sound team is listening. And he says “I hear you are against the Rockefeller project”. I reply “I am not against the Rockefeller project; in fact I want more commercial development in Hoboken.” “Oh really? Everyone in the State House believes you are against it – the buzz is that you are against it. If you move that forward, the money would start flowing to you” he tells me.

Lisa M. Ryan, spokeswoman for Constable, said in a statement: “Mayor Zimmer’s allegation that on May 16, 2013, Commissioner Constable conditioned Hoboken’s receipt of Sandy aid on her moving forward with a development project is categorically false.”

Publicly, Zimmer has not spoken out against either Constable or Christie and the governor’s office was quick to point to two supportive tweets she wrote about the governor.

In the diary entry she shared, Zimmer concluded with these lines:

“My beloved governor who wants to run for President. I cannot understand it. Why is he so concerned about Rockfeller? What has he promised them? What have they promised him? I cannot figure it out but I have no option but to stand up to him.”

Dafna Linzer and Jack Bohrer contributed to this report.
Post Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:54 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Wildstein has agreed to tell what he knows in return for immunity!




CNN exclusive: Port Authority job created for Gov. Chris Christie ally ... http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/16/politics/christie-wildstein-port-authority/ - - Cached - Similar pages 1 day ago ... Port Authority was told to find a job for Gov. Chris Christie ally David Wildstein
Post Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:11 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

CNN exclusive: Port Authority job created for Christie ally, source says


By Steve Kastenbaum and Chris Frates, CNN

updated 7:58 PM EST, Thu January 16, 2014

Christie's ally center of bridge scandal



STORY HIGHLIGHTS
David Wildstein was introduced to Port Authority as good friend of Gov. Chris Christie
Wildstein was named to executive level post in agency soon after
Christie has characterized Wildstein as someone he barely knew


(CNN) -- Give him a position at the top of the agency; he's a good friend of the governor.

That's how David Wildstein was introduced to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2010, according to a former employee with extensive knowledge of the agency's hiring practices.

Soon after, Wildstein was named the director of Interstate Capital Projects, a title that previously had not existed at the bi-state agency, setting in motion a career that would eventually place the former political blogger at the center of the lane closures controversy at the George Washington Bridge.

Wildstein catapulted into the national spotlight with his response to the infamous e-mail from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's aide: "Time for some traffic problems in Ft. Lee," Bridget Kelly wrote. Wildstein responded, "Got it."

A former Port Authority employee told CNN that agency officials were told in 2010 they had to find a place for WIldstein at the executive level and the directive was coming from Christie's office. Soon after, the position was created specifically for WIldstein. When Wildstein started, Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, Christie's top appointee at the agency, introduced him to people as a good friend of the governor.

Who is David Wildstein?

CNN examined documents from the Port Authority showing the names, titles and salaries of nearly 7,000 employees. The reports show that prior to Christie's first term in office there were four people working in the deputy executive director's office, the highest position on the New Jersey side of the agency. When Christie came into office the number increased to six. The documents show that Wildstein's position was created in May 2010.

Sources, including several current and former employees at various levels of the Port Authority who did not want their names used, told CNN it was assumed that when David Wildstein was involved in any discussions at the agency, the information was being passed back to Christie's office.

Wildstein's role included scrutinizing the agency's business for the governor and that's why he was given such a broad title, sources said. Those current and former employees said people were careful about what they said when Wildstein was in the room, always assuming it would get back to Christie.

Christie spokesman Colin Reed said the idea that Wildstein was the governor's eyes and ears is "inaccurate" and "has been mischaracterized by the media."

"As the governor made clear last week, David Wildstein is not a childhood friend and his interactions with him over the last four years have been limited. Last month, he appointed a new leader at the Port Authority with a proven record of rooting out corruption and reforming government agencies to help lead the agency," Reed said.

Neither Baroni nor Wildstein responded to requests for comment from CNN.

Wildstein personally directed the infamous lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in September. The revelations come in new Port Authority documents released on Thursday by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. They paint a picture of a man who went rogue, closing lanes without following proper procedures, despite warnings of traffic backups and safety risks. The governor is at the center of multiple investigations over whether the closure was political retaliation for the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee's failure to endorse Christie in his re-election campaign.


Christie distanced himself from Wildstein after the story broke. While he and Wildstein attended the same high school, Christie said, "David and I were not friends in high school. We were not even acquaintances in high school."

High school acquaintances contacted by CNN backed up the governor. Christie was on Livingston High School's baseball team. Wildstein was the team's statistician. The former coach of the team, Tony Hope, said the two could not have been more different.

"Nobody could ever say a bad thing about Chris, they loved him. David was the extreme opposite," Hope said. "David was very quiet, also extremely intelligent, but he didn't have great social skills ... he kept to himself, a nice individual but never really related to his peers."

Wildstein had a different reputation throughout the Port Authority. Several sources said he would sometimes yell and threaten to have employees fired when they repeatedly contradicted him or pushed back on his initiatives.

The Newark Star Ledger reported in February 2012 that critics accused Christie of turning the Port Authority into a patronage mill. Citing a document titled "NY/NJ Executive Referrals" the newspaper showed there were 35 new Port Authority hires directed by Christie during his first year in office. That's more than the last four governors combined, according to the paper.
Post Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:16 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Washington Post Politics
Democratic mayors who backed Christie struggled to weigh politics vs. local needs

by Carol D. Leonnig, Matea Gold and Rosalind S. Helderman, Published: January 18 E-mail the writers


In September, Adam Schneider, the liberal mayor of the New Jersey shore town of Long Branch, was having trouble with the state utility board. After repeatedly getting the run-around, Schneider decided to instead try his luck with the office of Gov. Chris Christie.

“I’m not talking to any more underlings, and I’m not being delegated to,” Schneider said he told Christie’s aides. In the end, he said, it worked. “I got what I needed.”

Schneider’s call came four months after he crossed party lines to endorse the 2013 reelection of Christie (R), whose performance he admired after Hurricane Sandy. Schneider said that the governor never promised him anything but that he believes he has received “enhanced” access to state officials since the endorsement.

Schneider’s experience is typical of many Democratic mayors, who made clear that they thought endorsing Christie’s reelection bid likely directly benefited their towns in the pursuit of Sandy recovery aid and other state support.

Now Christie, a top GOP 2016 presidential hopeful who has been engulfed by the George Washington Bridge political-retribution scandal, has been put on the defensive about his governing style.

On Saturday, the Democratic mayor of Hoboken alleged that two top Christie officials threatened to withhold Sandy aid from the hard-hit city unless she supported a development project backed by the governor.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer said she was told once in person by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and once in person by Richard Constable, Christie’s community affairs commissioner, that she needed to support the project in order for storm funds requested by her city to be approved. Zimmer, whose allegations were first reported by MSNBC, said she had also rejected Christie’s request for her endorsement.

The governor’s office called the accusations regarding Sandy aid and the development project “outlandishly false.”

Nevertheless, what has emerged among Democrats in New Jersey is a feeling that those who played ball with the governor enjoy favored status, while others have been shut out or had access curtailed. That is not an entirely unusual dynamic in politics, but it is one that conflicts with Christie’s carefully groomed image as a leader driven only by what is right, not petty politics.

Allegations of retribution are at the center of the bridge scandal, in which top aides to Christie caused a massive traffic jam, possibly to punish Fort Lee’s mayor for not endorsing Christie. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has said the administration suddenly yanked his access to a contingent of top officials slated to offer guidance on navigating the state bureaucracy after he declined to back the governor.

Christie spokesman Colin Reed said the governor earned the backing of Democrats “because of his bipartisan approach toward governing.”

“Every one of the major accomplishments from the first term, whether it be balancing budgets, capping property taxes or reforming our schools and pension systems, was accomplished by working with both Republicans and Democrats,” Reed said in a statement. “That’s how divided government is supposed to work, and it’s too bad Washington D.C. can’t follow New Jersey’s lead and get the big things done for our country.”

But some Democratic critics now say Christie’s success in wooing cross-party support last year masked a sense of fear felt by local officials under pressure from constituents to deliver funds for towns still damaged more than a year after the storm.

State Sen. Barbara Buono, who was trying to build support for her election challenge to Christie, said some Democratic elected leaders privately confided that they did not want to draw the governor’s ire at the time Sandy aid was flowing out of Trenton.

“You don’t think it’s such a big ask to ask a Democrat for endorsement or a meeting . . . but it proved to be more difficult,” she said.

The allegations revealed Saturday by Hoboken’s Zimmer that Christie aides held desperately needed storm funds for other political concerns could prove damaging to Christie’s widely praised post-Sandy record.

Hoboken requested $127 million in aid to initiate projects to prevent flooding from the Hudson River during future storms, a figure that represented more than a third of the total dollars available to the state.

State officials, who administered the dispersal of federal funds, approved $142,000 — less than the cost of one new generator. The city also received $200,000 from a separate pot of $1.8 billion to rebuild in the wake of Sandy, again a small fraction of its request.

Zimmer provided MSNBC with a diary entry, from a day after she said she received the second threat from a Christie aide, in which she recounted both incidents.

In a separate interview with The Washington Post, she said Guadagno pulled her aside in May after touring a ShopRite that had been rebuilt after the storm and told her the aid requests were linked to her support for a politically connected proposal to develop a three-block section of north Hoboken.

“It is very important to the governor,” the diary describes Guadagno as saying of the development project. “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, and if you tell anyone, I will deny it.”

A similar message came four days later from Constable, Zimmer said, as the two prepared to appear on a television program about Sandy recovery.

A number of those who crossed party lines to endorse Christie say they were not pressured into doing so, nor did they feel any fear about losing aid. But they did see the potential upsides.

Mayor Michael Blunt of Chesilhurst, a 1,600-person, largely African American town in Camden County, said endorsing Christie was a “no-brainer” after the governor kept a promise to hold a town hall in his community.

“I was a staunch, hard-core Democrat,” said Blunt, a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. “I had to sit down and think about, why am I supporting this party? What is my town getting?”

When Christie’s campaign released its first television ad of the general election, it featured a clip of the Chesilhurst mayor hugging the governor.

Dina Long, the Democratic mayor of the battered shore town of Sea Bright, said: “I made my endorsement based on who was with Sea Bright. That’s it.”

Long was one of the first Democrats to publicly endorse Christie. She cited her personal experience with the governor, who showed up in Sea Bright after the storm, delivered on support and gave her his personal cellphone number should she have trouble in the future.

Even so, some of the pro-Christie mayors felt heat from fellow Democrats. Long lost her position as chair of the local party committee. She said she put her “town ahead of party politics.”

After Sandy Moscaritolo, the Democratic mayor of River Edge, announced his backing of Christie in October, three Democrats on the town council held an event emphasizing their support for Buono.

For the most part, the mayors who backed Christie say the benefits to their communities far outweighed any local political fallout.

In heavily Democratic Essex County, hit hard by flooding from Sandy, Belleville Mayor Ray Kimble told the Newark Star-Ledger in May that he would support the governor’s reelection because he “is going to help the town of Belleville with certain projects we need.”

A few weeks later, Christie visited Belleville for the ceremonial groundbreaking of an $18 million, 137-unit affordable-housing complex for senior citizens, to be constructed largely with state money.

Schneider, the Long Branch mayor, said nobody should confuse his support for Christie last year as a precursor for what he and other Democrats might do if the governor runs for president in 2016.

At times, Schneider said, he has found himself cringing at some of the governor’s remarks, particularly on climate change.

“He’s reminding me why I’m not going to vote for him as president,” the mayor said. “But what I was being asked in spring of 2013 was, is he the best guy to support for governor of the state? He was.”
Post Sun Jan 19, 2014 11:37 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

US attorney inquiry into Christie widens

01/19/14 06:30 PM—Updated 01/19/14 07:01 PM

By Steve Kornacki and Meredith Clark




The New Jersey mayor who publicly claimed this weekend that Gov. Chris Christie’s administration tried to withhold hurricane relief funds met Sunday in private with the U.S. attorney for the state of New Jersey.

“This afternoon I met with the U.S. Attorney’s office for several hours at their request and provided them with my journal and other documents,” Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said in a statement Sunday. “As they pursue this investigation, I will provide any requested information and testify under oath about the facts of what happened when the Lieutenant Governor came to Hoboken and told me that Sandy aid would be contingent on moving forward with a private development project.”

Zimmer said Saturday in an interview with MSNBC that she would be willing to sign a sworn statement and testify under oath that she had been threatened by the governor’s staff to approve a development project or risk hurricane relief funding for her town of Hoboken, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.

The mayor’s claims, repeated again in a second interview Sunday with CNN, have fueled public impressions of Christie’s administration, which is already enveloped in a separate scandal of apparent political retribution aimed at another New Jersey town.

Christie’s administration is now the subject of several federal and state inquiries, including one opened last week by the U.S. attorney for the state of New Jersey, Paul Fishman.

Christie has denied Zimmer’s claims and contended on Saturday that $70 million in federal aid had been approved for Hoboken’s relief efforts. But Zimmer countered on CNN Sunday, saying the majority of the funds that the governor is taking credit for came from the federal flood insurance program, and not through the relief aid Congress granted to New Jersey.

According to Zimmer, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guagdano and Christie’s commissioner of community affairs, Richard Constable, suggested she could get easier access to hurricane relief funds if she signed off on a major redevelopment project favored by the governor.

“The bottom line is, it’s not fair for the governor to hold Sandy funds hostage for the City of Hoboken because he wants me to give back to one private developer,” Zimmer said in an interview onUP w/ Steve Kornacki.

Constable and Christie – through spokespersons – denied Zimmer’s claims. Christie’s office later issued a second statement attacking MSNBC. “MSNBC is a partisan network that has been openly hostile to Governor Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him, even taking the unprecedented step of producing and airing a nearly three-minute attack ad against him this week,” spokesman Colin Reed said.

Zimmer’s interview comes on the heels of a scandal in which other members of Christie’s inner circle conspired to create huge traffic swells, possibly in an act of political retribution, on another New Jersey town on the outskirts of Manhattan.

Christie has denied any knowledge of the plot that shut down lanes at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, one of the most heavily trafficked in the country. Inquires delving into what is now known as “Bridgegate” revved up last week when a legislative panel served 20 subpoenas to key members of New Jersey Republican’s administration and campaign.

The latest account from Zimmer, who provided MSNBC documents and diary entries to support her claims, shows that Christie’s inner circle was willing to cut off devastated constituents, muscle a friendly mayor and arrange public funds to finance a study for a project the governor supported. In a news conference last week, Christie rejected the notion that his administration engages in retribution or seeks political payback. Zimmer’s account paints a different portrait.

Zimmer claims they leaned on her twice to get their way. By the second encounter, Zimmer said – this time with Constable – the 45-year-old mayor and mother of two young children was despondent, according to her own notes.

“I was emotional about governor Christie,” she wrote in a diary entry she provided that is dated May 17, 2013. “I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something very different. This week I found out he’s cut from the same corrupt cloth that I have been fighting for the last four years.”

The allegations against the Christie administration caught the Republican governor just as he was on a fundraising trip to Florida over the weekend. The trip, alongside Republican Gov. Rick Scott, could have been an opportunity to showcase Christie’s star power and cement relationships with potential donors; Christie has left the door open to a presidential bid in 2016, and now wields new influence as the freshly-minted head of the Republican Governor’s Association. Instead, the governor kept his activities and appearances in the Sunshine State under wraps.

The dark cloud hanging over the embattled governor will likely extend through this upcoming week. Christie will mark his landslide re-election victory with a lavish, day-long inauguration Tuesday that culminates with a party on Ellis Island.

Amanda Sakuma contributed to this report.
Post Sun Jan 19, 2014 7:46 pm 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

New allegations that a Christie administrator suspended school principals for speaking at a public forum against the Governor's education plan.



New Jersey | Diane Ravitch's blog http://dianeravitch.net/category/new-jersey/ - 81k - Cached - Similar pages 5 days ago ... New Jersey's embattled Governor Chris Christie has always made a deal of his
Post Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:12 pm 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all
Categories
Education Reform


Bob Braun: More on the Outrage in Newark

By dianeravitch

January 20, 2014 //


Bob Braun covered politics and education in New Jersey for the Star-Ledger for 50 years until his recent retirement. He now has his own blog, which is an invaluable source of information and insight into New Jersey political doings.

Here he writes about the ouster of five Newark principals by state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson. Four of them spoke at a public hearing about the pending closure of their public schools, which will be handed over to KIPP. The fifth was suspended because she supported the president of the school’s PTSA, who was banned from entering the school his children attended.

Here is how the story begins:

At Newark’s Hawthorne Avenue School, the test scores are up, higher than state-imposed goals—and certainly better than those of the highly touted “Renew” schools favored by the administration. The hallways are quiet. Teachers and administrators get along. And this was all done despite central office’s stripping away of faculty resources and shameful neglect of the building. So, in the crazy, bullying logic of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration of city schools, it was time to suspend the school’s successful principal, H. Grady James. He was just too good to be allowed to stay.

Time to suspend him—and to try to smear his reputation by saying he was involved in some sort of “incident” now under “investigation.” The “incident” was a community meeting at the Hopewell Baptist Church last Wednesday where he spoke, praising the efforts of his students, teachers and parents.

James was one of five principals indefinitely suspended in one day by Cami Anderson, Christie’s agent in Newark. The others were Tony Motley, Bragaw Avenue School; Dorothy Handfield, Belmont-Runyon School; Deneen Washington, Maple Avenue School, and Lisa Brown, Ivy Hill School.

Braun’s article is maddening. It all seems so unfair. These principals were ousted the way a corporation fires a dangerous or possibly criminal employee: They were called to central headquarters, where their keys were taken away, and their computer access blocked. They were told not to enter the schools until further notice.

Governor Christie and Commissioner Chris Cerf want to privatize the entire Newark school district, to make it like New Orleans. Cami Anderson is their agent. She bullied the principals the same way that Christie bullies teachers and mayors.





Categories
Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Jersey, Privatization



The Sorry Condition of Civil Rights in New Jersey

By dianeravitch

January 20, 2014 //


Social activist Jan Resseger points us to a sobering article by civil rights attorney Paul Trachtenberg of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Trachtenberg describes the two school systems in New Jersey, one overwhelmingly white and successful, the other highly segregated and poor. One controls its schools, the other is controlled by the state.

She writes:

“One, the predominantly white, well-to-do and suburban system, performs at relatively high levels, graduating and sending on to higher education most of its students. The other, the overwhelmingly black, Latino, and poor urban system, struggles to achieve basic literacy and numeracy for its students, to close pernicious achievement gaps, and to graduate a representative share of its students. These differences have been mitigated to a degree by Abbott v. Burke‘s enormous infusion of state dollars into the poor urban districts, and some poor urban districts like Union City have been able to effect dramatic improvements. But neither Abbott nor any other state action has done anything to change the underlying demographics.”

Tractenberg describes a new report he co-authored, released jointly by Rutgers University’s Institute on Education Law and Policy and the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, that focuses on apartheid schools “with 1 percent or fewer white students” and intensely segregated schools with “10 percent or fewer white students.” According to the report, “almost half of all black students and more than 40 percent of all Latino students in New Jersey attend schools that are overwhelmingly segregated” —falling into one of these two categories. “Compounding the problem is that the schools those students attend are doubly segregated because a majority, often an overwhelming majority, of the students are low-income.”

Tractenberg depicts the school reform strategy of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf as a radical agenda that ignores segregation and poverty: long-term state takeover of school districts; closure of so-called “failing” schools; privatization; attacks on teachers unions; evaluation of teachers based on students’ test scores; and promotion of vouchers. (Newark’s schools have been under state control since 1995. Just this past week, Newark’s state-appointed overseer superintendent, Cami Anderson, fired four principals for speaking up at a public meeting to oppose her plan to close a third of Newark’s public schools.)

Tractenberg concludes: “‘evidence’ regarding the Christie/Cerf agenda shows that: long-term state operation of large urban districts is an unmitigated disaster; private-for-profit operation of public schools, public funding of private, mostly parochial schools, and most public charter schools have produced little or no substantial and sustained improvements in student achievement; replacing existing public schools with experimental “turnaround’ schools is no assurance of substantial and enduring improvement; and school vouchers have been overwhelmingly rejected by the public every time they have been put to a referendum.”

Tractenberg suggests that his own ideas —merging smaller school districts, creating county-wide school districts, creating a magnet school program modeled on Connecticut’s—are no more radical than the Christie/Cerf agenda. He would acknowledge, however, that developing the political will for policies that will challenge power, privilege and attitudes about race and class is going to be as difficult today as it was when Dr. King tried to undertake a campaign against poverty toward the end of his life. Tractenberg suggests we need an informed and thoroughgoing public discussion about racism and poverty and school segregation, a conversation that almost nobody is having these days in America.
Post Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:22 pm 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Detroit News

March 24, 2014 at 12:36 pm
Democrat: Report clearing Gov. Christie incomplete

ANGELA DELLI SANTI
Associated Press


Trenton, N.J. — The head of a New Jersey legislative panel investigating a political payback plot says a review undertaken by Gov. Chris Christie’s lawyers lacks credibility because it is missing information from key players.

Assemblyman John Wisinewski says the lack of cooperation from ex-aides Bridget Kelly and Bill Stepien raises questions about the thoroughness of the report due out soon.

The New York Times is reporting that the review will clear Christie of involvement in the plot to manufacture traffic jams in Fort Lee, apparently to punish the town’s mayor for not endorsing Christie. Randy Mastro, the lawyer hired by Christie to lead the review, tells the newspaper that the governor handed over his iPhone and permitted his email accounts to be searched.

Criminal and civil investigations are ongoing.






From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140324/POLITICS03/303240070#ixzz2wyIk3voR
Post Tue Mar 25, 2014 6:14 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

The Political Muckraker

Christie's Self-Exoneration Contains A Damaging Detail

Eric Lach – March 27, 2014, 11:42 AM EDT | 27184


The former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive who orchestrated the September lane closures on the George Washington Bridge claims to have told Gov. Chris Christie (R) about the closures while they were happening, according to a report released Thursday by a legal team representing the governor's office.


The report, which concluded that Christie "did not know of the lane realignment beforehand and had no involvement in the decision to realign the lanes," indicates that as the scandal began to escalate in December, former Port Authority David Wildstein began "feeling vulnerable, knew he would have to resign, and then did." At the time Wildstein was still telling the Governor's Office that the lane had been closed as the result of a traffic study, an explanation that has since been abandoned by the Port Authority and the Christie administration.

"While [Wildstein] continued to insist to the Governor’s Office that this was a legitimate traffic study, even if flawed in its execution, and admitted that this was his 'idea,' he tried to deflect blame, telling [Christie spokesperson Michael] Drewniak that he had not acted alone, identifying [former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget] Kelly and [former Christie campaign manager Bill] Stepien as others who knew, and claiming he had emails to prove it," the report states.

The report then states that Wildstein told Christie about the "traffic issue in Fort Lee" at a public event that occurred while the lane closures were happening, but that Christie could not recall the interaction.

"[Wildstein] even suggested he mentioned the traffic issue in Fort Lee to the Governor at a public event during the lane realignment—a reference that the Governor does not recall and, even if actually made, would not have registered with the Governor in any event because he knew nothing about this decision in advance and would not have considered another traffic issue at one of the bridges or tunnels to be memorable," the report states.

In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that Wildstein was part of a delegation that welcomed the Christie to the site of the the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 for a commemoration on the 12th anniversary of the attacks. The lane closures began on Sept. 9.
Post Sun Mar 30, 2014 5:53 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Chris Christie update: Former ally David Wildstein is talking - Salon ...
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/08/chris_christie_update_former_ally_david_wildstein_is_talking/ - 218k - Cached - Similar pages
20 hours ago ... After the Bridgegate scandal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seemed to believe


Chris Christie update: Bridgegate gets a grand jury - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/07/chris_christie_update_bridgegate_gets_a_grand_jury/ - 220k - Cached - Similar pages
1 day ago ... Chris Christie has been trapped in a major professional crisis throughout 2014
Post Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:47 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Tuesday, Apr 8, 2014 10:23 AM EDT

Chris Christie update: Former ally David Wildstein is talking

With news of former Christie ally Wildstein's talking to a grand jury, the media is throwing dirt on Christie 2016
Elias Isquith

After the Bridgegate scandal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seemed to believe he could skate by, or at least buy some time, by releasing a taxpayer-funded “internal inquiry” that cleared him entirely of any wrongdoing whatsoever. And while media and public’s response to the report was never as accepting as Christie and his allies no doubt had hoped, there was a time — about a week or so — when Christie’s “report” functioned as the last say on the Bridgegate scandal. But if new reports about former Christie ally and high school acquaintance David Wildstein are correct, Christie’s lawyers won’t be having the last word after all.

Here’s the latest Bridgegate and Chris Christie news:

Confirming earlier reports from Monday, CNN finds that Wildstein, the recipient of Bridget Kelly’s infamous “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” email and key orchestrator of the whole debacle, is talking with federal prosecutors. CNN reports that Wildstein has already spoken previously with the feds, who are trying to determine to what degree Bridgegate was motivated by goals of political payback. Wildstein has reportedly not been offered immunity to tell all — yet.
Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast has another, longer report on the Wildstein news. Nuzzi spoke with Jeff Smith, a current professor at the New School and former Missouri state politician who spent a year in prison for campaign finance violations, in order to get a better sense of what Wildstein’s talking to investigators means for Christie. “Anyone who’s around [Christie] may be wearing a wire. I’m sure he thought of that months ago, because that’s what he did for a living [as the U.S. Attorney] for six years,” Smith told Nuzzi. “He should be worried about everybody … There’s a lot of people around Christie who are probably privy to various things which may be problematic.”
Speaking of Smith, he has a piece in Politico Magazine along the same lines, using his experience to shed light on what Christie is now facing. While it would be a mistake to attribute the headline of the piece to Smith (they’re usually written by editors), it nevertheless pithily captures the gist of Smith’s essay: “Chris Christie is toast.”
And in news of smaller consequence, after being a key source of dagger quotes for the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in his new, sweeping look at Chris Christie’s “political style,” former New Jersey GOP governor and supposed Christie mentor Tom Kean Sr. rather half-heartedly tells NJ.com that he and Christie are A-OK. “I got pretty mad at him about what he tried to do to my son,” Kean said, referring to Christie’s failed attempt to have Tom Kean Jr. ousted as Senate Minority Leader, “but he and my son are getting along well fine now.”

Elias Isquith
Elias Isquith is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at @eliasisquith, and email him at eisquith@salon.com.
Post Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:50 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
untanglingwebs
El Supremo

Monday, Apr 7, 2014 09:15 AM EDT

Chris Christie update: Bridgegate gets a grand jury

Christie keeps trying to move forward, but a grand jury and a big New Yorker profile won't make it easy
Elias Isquith Follow

Chris Christie has been trapped in a major professional crisis throughout 2014 thus far, with all of his attempts to put Bridgegate behind him failing as new details leak and as major developments occur. The news on Friday of New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman’s having convened a grand jury to examine charges and hear testimony counts as perhaps the most important new moment in Christie’s Bridgegate saga since “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” became an instant catchphrase. And while the news for Christie on the legal front is bad, the media continues to paint a picture of a governorship defined by cynical glad handing and intimidation.

Here’s the latest for Christie:

Bloomberg confirmed over the weekend that Christie press secretary Michael Drewniak was recently summoned to speak before the grand jury. What he said or was asked about is not yet known (although his lawyer did confirm that the spokesman himself is not currently under investigation).
We’re not seeing this confirmed anywhere else, but Scott Raab of Esquire is reporting that Christie’s former proxy within the Port Authority, David Wildstein, is cooperating with U.S. Attorney Fishman. Wildstein was the recipient of the “time for some traffic…” email, is a longtime Christie ally, and has previously indicated through his lawyer that he has damaging information about Christie’s involvement in the traffic jam scheme. If Raab is correct, Christie partisans may have a big problem on their hands.
Christie is hoping to reorient attention back to his work as New Jersey’s governor, however, with another town hall planned for Wednesday of this week. The plan is to take questions about and discuss Christie’s new budget; but so far most town hall attendees have wanted to express their displeasure with the rate of the post-Sandy recovery.
The New Republic has a fresh interview with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is kind of the Democratic equivalent of Christie — loud, brash, bullying, macho, aggressive and so on. Emanuel is a former political operator himself, having done much to orchestrate the Democratic Party’s takeover of the House in 2006. During his TNR interview, Emanuel spends a few moments discussing Christie’s White House future. He’s not optimistic: “It may take more than an immediate time frame for him to recover,” Emanuel said of Christie, “and he doesn’t have more than that.”
Finally, the New Yorker has a big, meaty profile of Christie’s administration by Ryan Lizza. It’s a big, sweeping piece so it’s a bit hard to boil down to a few words, but suffice it to say Lizza does not leave the reader feeling any more confident that a President Christie would run the White House more benignly than he does Trenton.

Elias Isquith
Elias Isquith is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at @eliasisquith, and email him at eisquith@salon.com.
Post Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:54 am 
 View user's profile Send private message  Reply with quote  
  Display posts from previous:      
Post new topic Reply to topic

Jump to:  
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3  Next

Last Topic | Next Topic  >

Forum Rules:
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

 

Flint Michigan online news magazine. We have lively web forums

Website Copyright © 2010 Flint Talk.com
Contact Webmaster - FlintTalk.com >