Dear Commons Community,
The news for New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, keeps getting worse and worse. For the past month, the media have been all over him and his staff for closing the George Washington Bridge as an act of political retaliation. Now the news outlets are reporting that Hoboken, New Jersey Mayor Dawn Zimmer charged on MSNBC’s “Up With Steve Kornacki” show yesterday morning that Christie held Hurricane Sandy relief funds hostage to force her to approve a development plan that overly favored one specific property holder. As reported in The Huffington Post:
“Zimmer alleged that Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno told the mayor relief would be contingent on supporting 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,” Zimmer says Guadagno told her.
Christie’s community affairs commissioner Richard Constable also allegedly told Zimmer that if she moved forward with the development project, money would “start flowing to her.” Christie denied the claims through a spokesman, and Constable has called the accusation “categorically false.”
The property owner favored in the deal allegedly being pushed by Christie’s office, the Rockefeller Group, told “Up With Steve” that they have no knowledge of any political pressure around the proposed development.
“If it turns out to be true, it would be deplorable,” the company said in a statement to the show.
Christie is already facing a federal probe into whether he misused federal relief funds after Hurricane Sandy.
Zimmer has said that she asked for $100 million in relief funds for Hoboken, and received only $300,000. In an interview with WNYC last week Zimmer questioned whether Christie may have denied the funds because she declined to endorse him.
Several stories of Christie allegedly using his political muscle to bully people have surfaced since the governor’s office was engulfed in scandal for ordering the unannounced closure of two lanes on the George Washington Bridge.”
If any of these allegations prove true, Christie’s national political aspirations would be toast.
Tony
