Cuomo Appointees Planned Fake Bridgegate Memo

Andrea Bernstein at WNYC:

In the Bridgegate scandal, much has been made of what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie knew and when he knew it. But the other governor who also runs the Port Authority, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has long downplayed his knowledge of the scandal.

Documents filed Tuesday night by Bridgegate defendant Bill Baroni suggest that was a deliberate strategy.

Cuomo wasn't asked about the politically-motivated lane closures on the George Washington Bridge until three months after they occurred. "I don't know anything more basically than what was in the newspapers. This basically is a New Jersey issue," Cuomo told upstate radio station WCNY.

But now a new set of emails suggests that Cuomo's top appointees at the Port Authority were, two months before those remarks, actively discussing how to respond to the burgeoning scandal with top Cuomo aide Howard Glaser.

One of the suggestions? That Pat Foye, the Port Authority executive director, produce two different memos — one for the governor's office and a fake one that might some day be made public.

"How about the following — he types a detailed memo that he produces on his home computer, gives a hard copy to the 2nd floor and then type up a general memo for his files."

“Second floor” is Albany-speak for the floor of the state capitol where Cuomo and his top staff have their offices.

The email, penned by David Garten, the chief of staff to Port Authority Vice Chair Scott Rechler, goes on to say: "that way we have a thorough documented account, it's in the 2nd floor's hands...and then a general memo at the PA in case we get subpoenaed."

...


The newly-released emails suggests a level of communication with the governor's office about the scandal that Cuomo has never acknowledged. Glaser is described as speaking with both Foye and Rechler, though it's unclear what Glaser relayed to Cuomo.

Cuomo's press office did not respond to inquiries about what he learned from Glaser. Glaser also rebuffed email and phone inquiries. 

Two sets of memos, one real and one phonied up in case there's a subpoena.

Want to bet that's not the first time the geniuses in the Cuomo administration have come up with that strategy for something politically and/or criminally dicey?

Christie's Port Authority Scandal Back In The News

NJ.com:

Amid lingering fallout from the George Washington Bridge lane closures, the Port Authority's top lawyer announced that he would step down at the end of next month.

Port Authority General Counsel Darrel Buchbinder, 68, sent a letter to agency colleagues Monday informing them of his "bitter-sweet" decision to retire after 36 years with the agency.

...

Buchbinder's decision to step down form his $277,000 -a-year job comes amid multiple investigations involving the bi-state agency and current and former officials following the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures.

They include civil and criminal probes by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office into the use of $1.8 billion in Port Authority funds on the Pulaski Skyway and other New Jersey infrastructure projects that Buchbinder's office signed off on.

Buchbinder, who has not been accused or any wrongdoing, is among several Port Authority lawyers for whom the agency has hired outside lawyers to represent them in the post-Bridgegate investigations.

Not related to the investigation into the Pulaski money?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

Something to keep a watch on, at any rate.

Christie's got the Bridgegate trials coming up early next year, the David Samson/United investigation is still ongoing (with Christie's pal David Samson expected to be indicted in that case) and there's the Pulaski investigation still ongoing.

Christie likes to make like all his corruption problems are over.

They're not - not by a long shot.

Port Authority Scandal Flares Up Again For Chris Christie

The Port Authority scandals are gifts that just keep on giving:

United Airlines said on Tuesday that its chief executive, Jeff Smisek, and two other senior officials had stepped down amid a federal corruption investigation.

The airline is under investigation by the United States attorney in New Jersey over whether it had improperly sought to influence senior officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

...

 

United’s executive vice president for communications and government affairs, Nene Foxhall, and the senior vice president for corporate and government affairs, Mark R. Anderson, also resigned, the company said.

In February, federal prosecutors issued subpoenas focused on whether the former chairman of the Port Authority, David Samson, had pushed United to reinstate flights that he used to travel to and from his weekend home in South Carolina.

Ms. Foxhall and Mr. Anderson were among the United officials whose communications with the Port Authority had been subpoenaed.

...

The resignations also complicate the fortunes of Mr. Christie as he tries to resurrect his once-promising presidential bid, by underscoring the accusations of cronyism that have dogged his administration since the bridge scandal broke in early 2014. The governor has distanced himself from other figures implicated in the scandal, saying that they deceived him. But Mr. Samson, despite his resignation, has remained one of the governor’s closest advisers.

Christie's polls are in the toilet, so this news doesn't have much impact on him as presidential candidate.

But it does suggest that Samson's indictment is on the horizon - and who knows what happens then...

More Christie Corruption News

On the heels of this morning's leak to the Wall Street Journal that the Christie corruption scandal has widened to the Christie campaign comes this news tonight:

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed the state legislative panel investigating the George Washington Bridge access lane closures seeking records related to the Port Authority’s former deputy executive director.

Sen. Loretta Weinberg, co-chair of the committee, said the subpoena seeks audio or video records of testimony of Bill Baroni, who resigned rom the Port Authority in December 2013, testifying about the lane closures before the Assembly transportation committee in November 2013.

The subpoena was shared with committee members today.

Weinberg said the subpoena also sought any documents related to Baroni that the committee may have obtained since the grand jury’s last subpoena, which asked the committee to turn over any and all information it collected as part of its investigation.

“We have shared all of our documents with them generally,” Weinberg, a Teaneck Democrat, said. “So I think this was to cover anything that might have come in that we hadn’t given to them.”

Christie wants you to think Bridgegate and the ancillary scandals are over.

They're not.

Grab some popcorn and you're favorite orange sweater and enjoy the show.

Better than a Cowboys game in Jerry Jones' owner box.

When It Comes To Andrew Cuomo, There's A Lot To Protest

NYSUT is holding a protest demonstration outside the governor's mansion in Albany today:

The demonstration is ostensibly a protest against Cuomo's veto of the teacher evaluation "safety net" bill Cuomo himself had pushed prior to the election to shield teachers from Common Core test scores in their APPR evaluation ratings.

Cuomo made a deal with NYSUT over the "safety net" late in the spring, but never signed the bill into law.

Like many "deals" Cuomo has made lately (like the one he made with Working Families Party to push for a Democratic-controlled State Senate in return for the WFP ballot line), Cuomo had no intention of keeping his end of the bargain - that's why he never signed the "safety net" bill into law.

Cuomo waited until the end of the legislative session to veto the bill, using the mysteriously delayed release of the statewide APPR teacher evaluation ratings by NYSED as the excuse for the veto - he said so few teachers had been found "ineffective" by the APPR system that the "safety net" bill was not needed.

This veto came two days after Cuomo vetoed a Port Authority reform bill that had passed four houses in two different state legislatures, 612-0, that would have brought historic and much needed change to the way the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operates.

The PA has a budget larger than 26 states, but no accountability or transparency to the citizens of either state - it is entirely controlled by the NY and NJ governors.

Cuomo and his pal in crime and corruption, Governor Chris Christie, met last Tuesday to hatch a plan to veto the Port Authority reform bill and push their own "faux" reform that some astute observers believe has no chance to ever be enacted into law.

Cuomo, knowing that he would take a political hit for vetoing the PA reform bill, tried to hide the veto by issuing it on Saturday night during Christmas weekend, a time when few would be paying attention to politics.

Even more damning, when Cuomo released a press statement on Saturday night about the "faux reforms" he and Christie were pushing for the Port Authority, he hid the news of his PA reform bill veto in the last paragraph of the press release - so deep down in the statement that NY 1 staff couldn't figure out if he had actually vetoed the legislation or not.

How's that for a profile in political courage from Andrew Cuomo?

While Cuomo and Christie were hatching this plan to maintain the PA as their personal fiefdom and piggy bank, Cuomo was also planning to veto a bill that would extend tax credits to remediate toxic waste sites.

This tax credit extension veto, like the "safety net" bill veto, was a reversal of course, since Cuomo had said six months before that he would approve the extension while pushing for "reforms" to the program in the next legislative session.

It's an amazing amount of damage that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has done to the State of New York (and New Jersey, for that matter) in the course of just a few days time.

He has broken promises twice - once to teachers over the "safety net" bill, once to citizens of New York over the environmental clean-up tax credit extension - and has destroyed reform legislation for the Port Authority that was passed 612-0 by legislators in two states and pushed his own "faux" reform plan that has little chance to pass.

He has tried to hide his dirty deeds by pulling them at the end of the year, between Christmas and New Years, when many people are engaged with family and not paying attention to the political landscape, but teachers were paying attention and they intend to let Cuomo know it today at the Executive Mansion when Cuomo holds his annual New Years Eve Open House.

This is the right strategy - to take Cuomo on directly.

The only way to deal with a criminal and a bully like Andrew Cuomo is to take him on, right to his face, and keep on taking him on.

Cuomo does not understand compromise (he views it as weakness), his promises are worthless (as we have seen demonstrated twice in the last week alone) and he will never do the right thing for the citizens of the State of New York unless he is forced to do it by political pressure.

Cuomo himself indicated this when he said it was the constant badgering and haranguing by anti-fracking protesters that helped bring about the anti-fracking ban in New York State.

There's a terrific lesson in how the anti-fracking movement pushed Cuomo on the issue and made him do the right thing.

Cuomo feared the anti-fracking protesters and in the end, after years of being followed all around the state by anti-frackers with placards and signs, ceded ground on that issue.

If parents and teachers mount protests against Andrew Cuomo again and again, wherever he appears, hitting him on his hypocrisy over Common Core, over the Endless Testing regime he is pursuing in this state, over the evaluation system that causes so much of the overtesting to begin with, over his deliberately underfunding many school districts while the state imposes more and more mandates on them, and over his taking millions from charter school advocates and operators and pushing to greatly expand charter schools around the state, you will see an Andrew Cuomo in fear, an Andrew Cuomo on his heels, and Andrew Cuomo shrinking from the fight - just as you did in the fracking battle.

Andrew Cuomo is a bully and the only way to handle a bully is to stand up to him directly in a fight.

Today's anti-Cuomo protest at the Executive Mansion in Albany is ostensibly about Cuomo's veto of the "safety net" bill, but it's really about so much else too - his attacks on the public education system, his disdain for parents and teachers, his promotion of the Common Core and testing (even as he claims to be on the side of parents on this issue), his advocating for charter schools as he sucks up millions in charter school supporters campaign donations, his criminality and corruption.

When it comes to Andrew Cuomo, there's a lot to protest - so have at it, folks.

It's #CallOutCuomo time.

Still Can't Get Past The Chutzpah Of Cuomo Pushing "Comprehensive Reforms" For Teacher Evaluations Two Days After Rejecting The Same For The Port Authority

Two separate piece in LoHud point to the hypocrisy of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

The first, from Jon Campbell:

In June, Gov. Andrew Cuomo negotiated and proposed a bill that claimed to "protect New York's standing as a national leader in teacher evaluation."

Six months later, Cuomo vetoed the very same bill, saying it doesn't "fix the foundational issues with the teacher evaluation system."

...

In his veto message, Cuomo promised to propose "comprehensive reforms" to the teacher evaluation system next year.

The second, from the LoHud editorial board:

Over the weekend between Christmas and New Year's, when little government work gets done, Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Chris Christie of New Jersey pulled the plug on much-needed reforms at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. In the same breath, they touted their quest for "accountability" at the lapdog agency.

On Saturday night, the governors announced vetoes of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Transparency and Accountability Act of 2014, dual bills passed unanimously in both states' legislatures. The legislation promised more transparency and less political maneuvering at the Port Authority. The huge agency's responsibilities include international airports; the largest port in North America; key bridge, tunnel and rail crossings; and the World Trade Center site.

Don't worry, the governors pledged in a joint press release announcing the vetoes, they have a plan. The governors would enact a series of reforms (also needed) suggested by their own panel.

Apparently, the embarrassment of Bridgegate – in which Christie's buddies at the Port shut down local lanes on the George Washington Bridge for a mysterious "traffic study" in what quacked like political payback – wasn't enough. It seems the Port Authority's power – and money – are hard to give up.

...

The governors' promised reforms include streamlining the Port's leadership structure and taking certain appointments directly out of the hands of the governors.

Such measures would be a complement, not a competition, to the legislative proposals. There was no valid excuse to reject the bi-state bills that had garnered overwhelming support. But, it appears, the authority's deep pockets and current opacity are hard to resist.

To sum up:

Faux reformer Cuomo put the shiv into Port Authority reform on Saturday night (reform passed 612-0 in the NY and NJ legislatures, btw) and pushed his own PA reform (which Tom Moran of the Star Ledger says has little chance of being enacted), then put the shiv into his own teacher evaluation shield bill on Monday night and said he will push "comprehensive reforms" of the state teacher evaluation system in the next year.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Cowardly Cuomo Tries To Hide His Veto Of Port Authority Reform

Zack Fink has an excellent rundown on how and why Cuomo and Christie killed Port Authority reform during Christmas weekend.

Read the whole piece, but the three takeaways I got from it are

1. Christie and Cuomo plan to have a firesale of Port Authority property, selling it to their real estate campaign donors as payback for their financial and political support.

2. Christie wants Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye fired for exposing the Bridgegate scandal and talking to the US attorney.  That will happen now under the Cuomo/Christie announced plan.

3. Cuomo wanted to hide his veto of the PA reform legislation.  Unfortunately for him, news of the veto leaked out on the NJ side, making Cuomo look like he had lost control of the story narrative.  When Cuomo's office finally released an announcement about the Port Authority, they buried the news of the veto in the last paragraph:

Here's how Fink described it:

At about 4:30 Saturday afternoon, staff from Governor Chris Christie’s office in Trenton New Jersey called the majority offices of both houses of New Jersey’s Legislature. Their message was that a massive structural reform bill for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey would be vetoed. 

In contrast, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office told no one – not even the sponsors of the legislation – that a joint press release would be coming out later that night from the two governors, announcing rejection of the bill and implementation of their own reforms at the Port Authority.  

The same release casually mentioned in the last paragraph that “neither governor is approving the legislation as passed.”  

The lead was so buried on this one that my news desk at NY1 asked me twice if I was sure Cuomo was vetoing the bill. Yes, I told them, I am sure. But I could understand the confusion. 

In New Jersey the news leaked. Of course it did. I covered news in Jersey for 13 years. I coulda told you it would leak. All credit goes to Shawn Boburg at the Bergen Record who has done some excellent reporting on Bridgegate and the Port Authority.  

Boburg (who I do not know personally) was the guy who called former Christie aide Bridget Kelly last January to inform her that he had in his possession of an unfortunately worded email of hers that read: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” 

The problem with this leaking out the way it did is that it made Cuomo look like he was not in control of his own story. The story instantly became the vetoes, not the other reforms the two governors are implementing.

Cowardly Cuomo wanted to hide the veto, waiting until the last minute to do it, then trying to bury the news on Christmas Weekend with a diversionary PA reform release that further buried the news in the last paragraph.

Classic cowardice from Cuomo on this.

If you're wondering why I'm spending so much time on this PA story, it matters to public education advocates as Cuomo gets set next month to destroy public education in New York State.

He was already weakened going into Christmas after a difficult political season, but the way he went around hiding his killing of PA reform will further weaken him going into the New Year.

The next time Cuomo talks "reform," this Port Authority reform sham will come up to undercut whatever "reform" Cuomo is pushing - and that means education reform too.

What Are Christie And Cuomo Pulling With Their Sham Port Authority Reform?

Christopher Robbins at Gothamist:

State legislators of both parties in New Jersey and New York voted unanimously to reform the Port Authority, an agency with a $7.8 billion budget racked by patronage and opacity, and most recently used to exact revenge on an entire town. But shortly before midnight on Sunday, Governors Christie and Cuomo announced they would veto those laws and thus block that hard-earned reform.  

Democratic Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle of New Jersey sponsored the bill in her state, and called Cuomo and Christie's decision "spineless."  

“We crossed party lines to pass Port Authority reform, and they crossed party lines to obstruct it,” she told NJ.com.

A commenter at Gothamist bluntly puts this veto into perspective:

You can be sure there's some financial fuckery going on when these two scumbags pull some shit like this.  Otherwise, they'd be trumpeting the bipartisan/intrastate agreement from the mountaintops -- and not do this in the middle of Christmas and New Years when the political press corpse is on holiday.

Fortunately, they've just guaranteed that neither one will be president.

Another says:

Blinding naked corruption in its purest form. Screw the public. Until they get their respective 'cuts' from the barrel of money any change will cost, both these weasels will make sure the cesspool status quo remains.

Can't really improve on either of these comments.

This veto of PA reform is going to come back to haunt Governor Cuomo.

Next month when he starts talking the need for "reform" of the public education system, you can bet opponents are going to bring up this PA chicanery to point out how Cuomo is ONLY in favor of reform that enlarges his power and control.

Reaction To The Port Authority Reform Bill Veto By Andrew Cuomo, Faux Reformer

Faux reformer Andrew Cuomo vetoed a Port Authority reform bill last night, claiming he and his fellow governor in corruption, Chris Christie, will push their own PA reform.

The reaction to Cuomo's veto was swift and condemnatory:

Cuomo vetoed the New York bill just before midnight. Had he not vetoed it, the bill would have become law in New York State, though their identical New Jersey versions would have required Christie's signature -- or his failure to act by a deadline next month.

“We crossed party lines to pass Port Authority reform, and they crossed party lines to obstruct it,” said Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen), who called the governors “spineless” for revealing their veto plans on the Saturday night after Christmas, when the public might not notice.

...

State Senator Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said the only reason the governors would veto such a bill would be that they do not want to enhance accountability of any agency they jointly control through their appointment of commissioners and veto power over board actions.

"There is no legitimate reason for them not to sign" both bills, Weinberg said.  

Lawmakers weren't alone in condemning the accountability veto. Regional watchdog groups including the Citizens Union, New Jersey Foundation for Open Government, the New York Public Interest Research Group, Reinvent Albany, & the Tri­-State Transportation Campaign issued a joint statement.

"It is obvious that the Port Authority has lost its way, and Governors Cuomo and Christie have now vetoed a bill which was unanimously supported by the state legislatures of New York and New Jersey, numerous public stakeholders and editorial boards," the groups stated. "This much-needed legislation would have put in place fundamental reforms necessary to make the Port Authority far more accountable."

Here are some some comments from NJ.com on the Cuomo veto:

You'd think everyone could agree that the Port Authority needs to be transparent and accountable to the public, not the personal and political playground of politicians.
What this coordinated veto that Cuomo and Christie tried to sneak by on a Saturday night shows is that there are politicians in both parties that are corrupt.
And this forum shows that those who put their party ahead of the public interest are willing to go along, preferring to attack the other party even if both parties are involved. Thus they keep us distracted while they pick everyone's pocket.

...

Did ANYONE actually think Christy/Cuomo would actually change the Port of Authority??? They get SO MUCH more of our money by keeping the agency out of the Public domain. They take our Toll money, charge planes to come/go, and God knows what else they control. They have a budget AS BIG AS NJ'S BUDGET .... Do you have ANY idea how much of our money they can steal for personal gain ??? Look at Samson. He's just one. Look how much HE was able to gain. .. If ANYONE was actually able to REALLY see what the books would reveal, I think they all might go to jail...  You can thank our Tri-State Gov.s the next time you pay your EZ Pass bill after driving from Jersey to JFK.... Just for tolls, and parking at JFK, you're looking at approx. 45.00 $$$... That is just one person. Now multiply that by the millions that go to just JFK. Get The Picture ????

...

I don't get it, Cuomo just gave a stirring speech at Officer Ramos' funeral about what a great nation we are, and how we all have to work together to engender changes.  So what do we get instead? The same old same old.  I guess the message is if change doesn't infringe on my power, I'm all for it.

...

We know about Christie, but what's Cuomo's excuse?  If we dig a little deeper, this is the same governor who stopped the Moreland Commission, and its ability to prosecute corrupt politicians in New York.  Again, doing what's best for their own self=interests, not the people's interests.

...

So that explains the dinner they shared the other night, they were having a mafia style sit down on how to divvy up the PA between them.

...

Why haven't the feds investigated this SCAM perpetrated by both governors and Christie's P/A NY/NJ Capos, Baroni & Wildstein?;


"Top Christie Port Authority appointees devised toll-hike plan to bolster image of NJ, NY governors"


http://www.northjersey.com/news/top-christie-port-authority-appointees-devised-toll-hike-plan-to-bolster-image-of-nj-ny-governors-1.734478

What Cuomo did last night was to make sure that little will actually change at the PA - the governors of NY and NJ will continue to call many of the shots at the Port Authority and because the changes they are suggesting for the PA will be written into PA by-law rather than NY and NJ state law, any reform that actually happens will be eroded over time.

The next time faux reformer Andrew Cuomo attempts to talk about some major "reform" he plans, the hatchet job he did on Port Authority reform must and will be used on him by the opposition.

Because Cuomo is not interested in real reform of any kind - he is only interested in reform that enlarges his power.

Let us remember this when he trots out his large scale reform plans for the public education system next month during his State of the State address.

Cuomo, Christie Push Sham Reform For Port Authority

As I wrote earlier, Christie and Cuomo are vetoing a Port Authority reform bill that passed both state legislatures 612-0 and would have enshrined a host of reforms into state law in both New York and New Jersey.

They are instead pushing their own sham reform:

Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocked the efforts of lawmakers in both states to reform the Port Authority and instead endorsed their own sweeping proposal on Saturday, nearly a year after the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal brought the agency under unprecedented scrutiny and criticism.

The governors agreed that they would no longer appoint the agency’s two top executives, that the agency should shed its real estate holdings, including the World Trade Center, and that money previously set aside for the governors’ pet projects should be shifted toward a new Manhattan bus terminal and other transportation initiatives that will benefit commuters moving between New Jersey and New York. They announced the changes in a joint statement that accompanied a 103-page report of reform recommendations.

The report, endorsed by a panel appointed by both governors, was released as the governors announced they would veto a widely-supported Port Authority reform bill unanimously passed by legislators in both states. The veto and simultaneous release of the report were seen by some as an attempt to head off legislative efforts to weaken the governors’ control over the multi-billion agency. It also comes as Christie is trying to put the lane closure scandal behind him as he mulls a run for president. A federal criminal investigation is ongoing.

...

State Sen. Bob Gordon of Fair Lawn, a sponsor of the reform bill sent to both governors, said before the governors released their report that any changes proposed by the Port Authority or the governors would not go far enough. 

“In all likelihood those changes will occur in the bylaws of the Port Authority, and the whole reason for going through this exercise we have since February, is to make these changes in statute so they have the force of law, because you get a majority of commissioners together and with the vote of a majority they can rescind the bylaws. And even if the current group decides to change their procedures in the interest of transparency and accountability, the next team in there may not, and all of this may be forgotten 20 years from now and we’ll go through the same thing again.”

Here's how you know Cuomo understands the press over this is going to be bad:

.@NYGovCuomo chooses to veto historic port authority reform legislation on a Saturday night. Lets NJ media report the story first.
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) December 28, 2014

So he releases this jive:

.@NYGovCuomo opts to veto historic port authority legislation. Let's jersey media report it first.
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) December 28, 2014

Zach Fink points out:

.@NYGovCuomo fails to explain his veto. Issues statement claiming he will make better changes than those that passed by more than 600 votes
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) December 28, 2014

Cuomo and Christie may "embrace the spirit and intent of the extensive reforms contained in the omnibus pending legislation," but they didn't want to sign them or enshrine them into law.

They took a historic moment when real reform for the Port Authority could have been written into law in two states and instead pushed their own sham version that will be eroded over time and ultimately be ineffective.

In a few weeks as Cuomo starts to talk about the need for wide scale "reform" of the New York public education system and touts his record as a "reformer," I will make sure that people remember the games he and his fellow in corruption, Chris Christie, played with Port Authority reform.

Christie, Cuomo To Veto Port Authority Reform Bill, Enact Their Own "Reforms"

Been on the road much of the day, but just saw this:

Bills passed unanimously by the state legislatures of New Jersey and New York that would institute an array of reforms at the Port Authority will not be signed into law by Governor Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a ranking Senate Democrat said late Saturday afternoon.

Sen. Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck said the state Senate Office was informed by Christie's office that the bills, which are  awaiting the signatures of both governors, will be vetoed on Saturday. Weinberg said the office was told that a separate bill making the Port Authority subject to public records laws in both states will be conditionally vetoed. She said the Senate office was informed of the impending development in advance of a joint announcement by the governors expected later today.
...

The legislation would have initiated broad administrative, procedural and ethics reforms at the Port Authority, including requiring efficiency studies by outside experts every two years, imposing restrictions on lobbying, and forcing agency officials to appear before state lawmakers to answer questions about any topic.

Instead, the governors were expected to announce a list of reforms proposed by their own appointed panel, Weinberg said.

Here is a press release that just got sent out from Christie and Cuomo:

Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Governor Chris Christie accepted the comprehensive and wholesale changes recommended by the Bi-State Special Panel on the Future of the Port Authority. At its core these changes call for restructuring the agency's overall operations, including reorganizing the leadership of the Board of Commissioners and the executive management of the Port Authority with the creation of a single Chief Executive Officer and the modification of the Chairperson's role. The reorganization accepted by the Governors will also return the Port Authority fully to its original mission – developing and maintaining the world's largest transportation system and infrastructure.

The structural reorganization of the Authority will create clear lines of responsibility and accountability that start with its leadership. A single Chief Executive Officer -- to be hired as expeditiously as possible based on a national search directed by the Board of Commissioners -- will replace the Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director. The current Chair and Vice-Chair roles will be modified in one of two ways. Either the Chair and the Vice Chair positions will be replaced with two Co-Chairs, one recommended by each Governor, for election by the Board of Commissioners, or the chairmanship will be rotated between the two states on an annual basis. Either approach promotes a long-term balance between the policy interests of the respective states, and present a more equitable model to the public stakeholders of the Authority. The CEO and either Co-Chairs or rotating Chair and Vice-Chair will constitute the Office of the Chair, a senior operations committee.

Organizational changes to the Agency to demand increased accountability is only part of the Special Panel's recommendations to maintain trust with the public it serves. Governors Cuomo and Christie are embracing initiatives to increase transparency of the Port Authority's deliberations and operations.

Additionally, Governors Cuomo and Christie accept and endorse the transparency legislation, Senate Bill No. 2183 (First Reprint), and S6718C/A8785C, but with some sensible changes to eliminate confusion that would be caused by the bill as currently drafted. The recommended changes will make it easier for individuals pursuing public records under the law. The Governors continue to embrace the previously announced Freedom of Information policy, which ensures access to the Port Authority's records under both States' laws, and the recent practice of strictly limiting the use of executive sessions for Board deliberations and using public meetings whenever possible.

Additionally, the Port Authority has been instructed to prepare a revised Code of Conduct to drive a renewed focus on ethics and compliance throughout the agency, and the Governors are calling for the creation of a Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer position to ensure the highest ethical conduct.

Why are they vetoing a reform bill that passed both state legislatures 612-0 for their own "reforms"?

I dunno.

Is this just about grabbing the narrative?

Is this a head fake, with their "reform" only looking like "reform"?

What I'm seeing so far suggests it's a little bit of both:

From @AssemblymanWiz: "It's difficult to comprehend how these bills were not signed, considering the problems we've seen and uncovered"
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) December 27, 2014

From main NYS sponsor of PA reform legislation @NYGovCuomo opted to veto on a Saturday night...“The veto is without merit."
— Zack Fink (@ZackFinkNews) December 27, 2014

I'll have more in a bit.

But suffice to say, Cuomo and Christie are doing something that will have great import here both for their own powers and the millions of people in both states who are served by the Port Authority.

Why Is Cuomo Intent On Public School Reform But Reluctant On Port Authority Reform?

Less than 18 hours before Governor Andrew Cuomo has to take final action on the Port Authority reform bill that passed 612-0 in all four legislative houses in New York and New Jersey.

Editorial boards in both states are calling for him to sign it - the Daily News was the latest yesterday.

So are politicians and reform advocates.

And let's say again, it passed 612-0.

Does anything ever pass 612-0 anymore?

Yet for some reason, Cuomo hasn't signed the PA reform bill yet and is waiting until the last moment to take public action.

The cynic in me wonders if it's because of some secret deal he has with Christie, his fellow governor who also controls the PA and uses it as a patronage mill and a cash box when he needs funds for projects that have nothing to do with the PA.

It's pretty clear the Port Authority is need of "reform".

As the Daily News put it:

Exempted from basic government rules like the freedom of information and open meetings laws, the Port Authority has run amok time and again. Even a partial list of the outrages astonishes.

There was the waste of billions of dollars on a super-extravagant, overdesigned PATH station.

There was the scheme by which the governors ordered the authority staff to propose a toll hike that was double the amount needed so the governors could then “rescue” drivers by ordering the hike slashed. For good measure, Cuomo and Christie then ordered up an audit that branded the PA “dysfunctional.”

There was Bridgegate.

There was the diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars by which Christie propped up a bankrupt city and funded his road budget.

There were secret meetings of the board of commissioners and conflicts of interest galore.

There was Christie’s use of the authority as a patronage dump and the division of the agency into two bureaucratic fiefs, one for each state.

Cuomo and Christie now have the opportunity — actually, the duty — to impose the most sweeping reforms on the PA in its near century of life and to do so by statute, not easily modified PA bylaw or gubernatorial decree.

...

One measure would subject the PA to the freedom of information laws of both states and mandate that it conduct business in public. The other, more sweeping, bill would require members of the board of commissioners to swear a “fiduciary” duty to act in the authority’s best interest — and not in either governor’s political interest.

Despite the will of the people as so certainly expressed by two legislatures, Cuomo and Christie have said exactly nothing about the reform acts. Both must approve for the laws to take effect.

Cuomo claims the mantle of "reformer" and has already told us he plans widespread "reform" of New York's public education system, which he says is a "monopoly" that he needs to "break."

Dunno why Cuomo is so intent on reforming public education but reluctant to reform the Port Authority.

The cynic in me thinks it's because public education "reform" will enlarge his power as governor while Port Authority "reform" will diminish it.

It seems when it comes to "reform," Governor Cuomo is only for the kind that enlarges his power.

At any rate, with so many public figures and editorial boards promoting PA reform, Cuomo may have no choice but to sign this bill into law.

But then Christie has to do so too for it to actually become law.

The two met on Tuesday and again, the cynic in me wonders what they were cooking up over the PA.

You can bet neither one wants this to happen.

You can bet they have some jive planned to kill PA reform.

It may come with Cuomo not signing the bill into law.

Or it may come with Cuomo signing it but then something happening that keeps Christie from signing it by his mid-January deadline.

One way or the other, I have a difficult time seeing why Cuomo would have left this bill to the last minute except that he's got some shenanigans planned to kill it.

Exclusive Video Of Cuomo And Christie Colluding Over Their Port Authority "Problem"

As I posted earlier this week, NJ.com reported that Governor Christie and Governor Cuomo met at a restaurant in Carlstadt, NJ for lunch.

Christie's spokesperson admitted to the meeting though would not say what was discussed there.

Cuomo's spokesperson didn't return calls.

But given how the Port Authority reform bill sits on Cuomo's desk and must be either signed or vetoed by tomorrow night, you can bet the words "Port" and "Authority" came up a couple of times at the Cuomo/Christie meeting.

See, neither Cuomo nor Christie really want Port Authority reform (despite all four legislative houses in both states voting unanimously for the PA reform bill - 612-0!) and they're looking for a politically astute way to kill it.

Why don't either of these governors wants PA reform?

Well, that's an easy question to answer.

It's because the Port Authority is a cesspool of patronage, criminality and corruption - just the kind of place guys like Cuomo and Christie like.

Here's The Nation investigating some of that cesspool back in April:

When, in 2011, Governor Chris Christie did an end-run around Port Authority rules to siphon $1.8 billion in PA funds for pet projects in New Jersey, the New York side of the PA, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, went along. Why? As Christie Watch has learned, the New York PA officials had their own concerns—namely, getting the new World Trade Center built—and, worse, in the words of one former PA official, they didn’t want “to go to war with Christie.”

Read the rest - what you learn is that Christie killed a trans-Hudson tunnel New Jersey desperately needed so that he could steal the money from that project and use it for projects the bankrupt state transportation kitty was supposed to fund.

Two New York governors, Paterson and Cuomo, knew what Christie was doing was wrong, but neither wanted to do anything about it because they needed Christie to continue signing off on the insane gobs of money the World Trade Center complex was costing - especially the over-budget PATH transportation center.

The takeaway from this mess:

 So with New York officials acquiescent, and the New Jersey governor determined to grab the ARC money to avoid tax increases, the use of the money for the Pulaski Skyway and related building went through. “The governors of either side don’t seem to have any qualms about committing Port Authority funds for their own purposes even though they may be non-Port Authority related,” says David Gallagher, a former executive at the PA. “But it’s not a regional piggy bank. It was intended to provide the transportation, business and commercial infrastructure to make the bi-state region grow.”

The Nation also reported the patronage that goes on at the PA, particularly from Christie's side of the Hudson:

Since 2010, Christie has installed dozens of cronies and favored operatives, including very high-level Christie insiders: David Samson, a real estate attorney, as chairman; Bill Baroni, now fired, a long-time Christie ally who was the PA’s deputy executive director; Philip Kwon, another key Christie ally is the agency’s deputy general counsel; and, of course, David Wildstein, Christie’s non-friend from Livingston High School, who was “director of interstate capital projects,” whatever that is.

Thanks to Bridgegate, most of those names are now well known not only in New Jersey but nationwide. What’s less well known is how Christie has used the PA to build his political machine, using its power to curry favor with a wide range of Democratic mayors, county officials and party bosses. In towns such as Hoboken, Harrison and many others, the PA is involved in or controls important development initiatives and transportation projects that are often entangled with cronies of the New Jersey governor and his friends.

Read the rest of that piece - some of what you'll learn is that Christie and Cuomo hit people with "massive" PA toll and PATH fare increases, then Christie stole the money for his own purposes:

The New Jersey legislative investigation may also finally bring to light the political dealings behind the enormous toll hikes the Port Authority enacted in September 2011, when fares on bridges and tunnels rose from $8 to $13. (They’re scheduled to go to $15 by 2015.) Usually such increases would only follow extensive public debate and discussions; instead, they were rushed through after only a single day of hearings that summer.

...

Linked to all this—and the committee is seeking documents on this, too—is Christie’s decision in 2010 to cancel the tunnel project. By then, the various agencies involved had already spent over $400 million on engineering property acquisition, construction and other expenses. New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Jon Corzine had broken ground on the project just before his defeat by Christie in 2009.

But a few months after Christie appointed Baroni to the PA, he and David Wildstein, who is at the heart of Bridgegate, looked for other ways to use the $2 billion in PA funds slated for the tunnel. Here’s what they came up with: to help Christie keep his promise not to raise gasoline taxes, they decided to use it to resupply the exhausted Transportation Trust Fund, which is usually replenished through the gas tax at the pump. In addition, they sloshed some of it to build a rail station in a town whose Democratic mayor later supported Christie for re-election. And it went for a new bridge project that won him the support of the powerful International Laborers Union at his first re-election campaign rally a year later.

The Nation also notes how the PA became a patronage mill for Christie:

The Bergen Record investigated who they were:

One was a gourmet food broker who landed work as an $85,000-a-year financial analyst at the Port Authority. Another got a $90,000 job to check maintenance contracts. An author and actor was hired as the employment publications editor—a three-day-a-week gig that pays $50,000 and provides full benefits.

In an interview with The Nation, Jameson W. Doig, a professor at Dartmouth and author of Empire on the Hudson, a definitive history of the Port Authority, said that Christie’s appointments “show patronage at work.” He added: “Christie was willing to use his power as governor to insist that the Port Authority hire his friends and party workers, even if they were not qualified for the work they were expected to do.”

This is mob-like stuff Christie's engaging in  - the creative accounting that allows him to steal millions meant for public projects and use the money for his own ends, the "no-show jobs" for his pals and cronies, the use of the PA to punish enemies (like when members of the Christie administration had traffic on the George Washington Bridge shut down for three days as political payback.)

You can see why Christie wouldn't want any of this stuff to end and why Cuomo might want to assuage his political pal until the WTC complex is finally completed and he doesn't have to worry about getting stuck with the bill.

And so, Cuomo and Christie met this week to talk over their Port Authority "problem" and figure out solutions.

Neither man completely trusts the other, so they picked a public place both know (which is why they were noticed by the press.)

Perdido Street School blog, via a commenter at NJ.com named Neilhow, has gotten exclusive video of Christie and Cuomo colluding over the Port Authority.

We have forwarded this tape to the proper authorities as well, the respective US attorneys offices in NY and NJ who are investigating these two criminals, but don't hold your breath that anything will happen to either of these two corrupt public officials.

About the best we can hope for is that these guys turn on each other and go to war publicly - something that could happen if this video of their lunch together means anything at all.

In any case, enjoy the video:

Were Cuomo And Christie Colluding To Kill Port Authority Reform When They Met For Lunch This Week?

Governor Christie and Governor Cuomo met for lunch in New Jersey the other day, as reported by NJ.com.

Yesterday I wondered aloud just what they might have been colluding over as they broke bread.

Today the NY Times reports it may have been the Port Authority reform bill that was passed by all four houses of the legislatures in both states - 612-0 - that neither Cuomo nor Christie want to sign into law:

ALBANY — On its surface, the bill known here as A3944C — less of a mouthful than the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Transparency and Accountability Act of 2014 — would seem to be a slam-dunk.

It was intended to overhaul operations at the Port Authority, even as prosecutors continue to investigate last year’s politically motivated lane closings at the George Washington Bridge and other allegations of misconduct. Identical versions of the legislation were unanimously approved by all four houses of the New York and New Jersey State Legislatures. Newspaper editorial boards spanning the ideological spectrum and on both sides of the Hudson River have pressed for it to be signed into law.

Yet the later the hour grows for the bill’s approval by the two governors, the more skittish its sponsors are growing about its chances of becoming law.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo faces the first deadline: He has until Saturday night at midnight  to decide on the New York bill. If he approves it, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey will face heightened pressure to do the same; his deadline is in mid-January. But because the authority is a creation of the two states, approval of the legislation by only one state would have the same effect as its rejection by both.

Supporters of the bill say they now fear that the governors will reject the bill because it would erode the control they share evenly over everything the Port Authority does — whether running airports and bridges, hiring politically connected officials or awarding billion-dollar contracts to benefit political allies.

The Times reports that Cuomo is likely to be the governor to take first action to put the shiv into Port Authority reform - and he'll use another one of his jive panels to do it:

Backers of the legislation say they fear a pre-emptive strike on the New York side of the river.

In early May, Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Christie formed a special panel on the Port Authority’s future.

Were that panel to release findings before Saturday, the theory goes, it could give Mr. Cuomo a rationale for vetoing the legislation, which in turn would spare Mr. Christie the decision.

Cuomo's done this kind of thing before - he just used the release of APPR teacher evaluation system results as the rationale for why he's not signing the Common Core "shield bill" into law.

This was a bill that he called for back in the spring, but some teachers were skeptical it was anything other than a pre-election political maneuver.

Last year, NYSED released evaluation ratings in October, but for some reason this year there was a delay on the ratings release until the end of the calendar year, when the "shield bill" had to be either signed into law or vetoed.

The APPR evaluation results - with few teachers statewide found "ineffective" - gave Cuomo the excuse he needed to not sign the bill - something Jessica Bakeman reported he may have always wanted in the first place.

He also used his Common Core panel as an excuse for why the NY legislature did not need to address parent concerns over testing and Common Core - he claimed his CCSS panel was going to handle the issue.

This was the panel, btw, that panel member/teacher Todd Hathaway said was rigged from the outset for a particular finding that Cuomo wanted - just like his public corruption and LIPA panels were rigged.

So let's not be surprised if the Port Authority special panel that Cuomo and Christie set up issues a Christmas Week report that Cuomo and Christie want issued this week that gives Cuomo the excuse to help himself and his buddy, Chris Christie, out on PA reform.

Cuomo doesn't want to sign this reform bill into law, he knows Christie doesn't want it either, and they may be choosing Christmas week to kill it, a time when many people are not paying attention to the news.

I'll have more on this later, because from an education perspective, one of the best things that can happen here is for Cuomo to veto the bill.

While I want Port Authority reform and think it's much needed (I'm a daily PATH rider), if Cuomo puts the political shiv in PA reform after politicians in both NY and NJ voted for it 612-0, it's going to start the year off with the narrative frame that "Reformer Cuomo" talks a good game about reform but doesn't really want any except for the kind that enlarges his own power.

If he vetoes the PA reform bill, it will also put him on the defensive at the start of the legislative session just as he is set to argue that large-scale reform for the education system is needed.

It will also undo some of the goodwill he's engendered from liberals over his ban on fracking in New York.

One thing I know - we want him on the defensive as he starts the legislative season out, that's for sure.

He would be a fool to veto something that passed both state legislatures 612-0 without some political cover for himself, so if this thing plays out the way Times games it may, with Cuomo using the panel as excuse to kill the PA reform bill, we'll have to make sure that cover ends up in tatters.

At any rate, in just two days, we'll know what they're planning on doing.

We know Cuomo and Christie have colluded before over the Port Authority - the Bergen Record reported that they hatched a secret plan to raise Port Authority tolls and PATH fares while shielding themselves from the decision - so you can bet the lunch in Carlstadt this week between these two wasn't just a social call.

New York Road, Bridge Tolls Might Have To Double In Order To Pay For Cuomo's Tappan Zee Bridge Boondoggle

Yancey Roy at Newsday:

New York might have to double tolls on its highways and bridges over the next  five years to help pay for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s plan to rebuild the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, a financial expert said Wednesday.

The rest of the story is behind a paywall but if you've been watching the TZB project closely, you know it's got a hefty price tag that hasn't been paid for and when that money comes due, it will come from not only an increase to the TZB toll but increases to tolls all across the state.

When Cuomo and Christie wanted to raise the Port Authority tolls and PATH fares, they coordinated in secret to keeo the politicla heat off of themselves.

I am sure Cuomo will try and do the same with TZB boondoggle.

But without a hapless entity like the Port Authority to take the heat, Cuomo is going to be squarely in the sights of people looking to cast blame.

This was his baby, his boondoggle, his toll increases.

Governor Cuomo Used Christie's Bridgegate Cronies For Port Authority Toll Hike Games

Earlier I posted a Star-Ledger article from the March that revealed the games Governors Christie and Cuomo played with Port Authority bridge and tunnel increases as well as a PATH fare hike.

The gist was this:

Both governors wanted to raise the tolls and PATH fare but wanted political cover to do it.

So they had their Port Authority appointees play games with the fare and toll increases, releasing outrageous hikes in order to let the governors swoop in and "demand" smaller increases, thus looking like "heroes."

In addition, they made sure public hearings over the increases took place at times when the general public couldn't attend but members of construction unions that would benefit from work paid for by the toll increases could, thus Christie and Cuomo could say that some in the public were supporting the fare and toll increases.

In the end, Christie and Cuomo already knew what the increases were going to be, they just wanted some political theater to give them political cover.

It was, in the words of one former PA official, "all bullshit."

And guess who helped Christie and Cuomo play their bullshit games?

Some of the same people who played games with the George Washington Bridge:

BRIDGING THE SCANDALS

And, the sources said, the fictional plan was led by the same people who two years later would arrange the September 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures, which have engulfed the Christie administration in scandal.

The two were Bill Baroni, the former Republican state senator and GOP campaign lawyer named by Christie to the agency’s deputy executive director post in early 2010, and David Wildstein, the former political blogger and Republican mayor of Livingston, where he went to high school with Christie.
Baroni’s lawyer, Michael Himmel, said his client had “no comment” on the assertions.

Wildstein’s lawyer, Alan Zegas, called the officials' version of the toll hike “inaccurate.”

He did not specify how. He also suggested there was a conspiracy to tar his client. “It is a snippet, and a not fully accurate one, of reality,” Zegas said.

The Christie administration did not return phone calls or emails. Ranking officials at the authority also did not comment. Cuomo’s office likewise did not respond to calls or emails.

While none of those officials would comment, a committee chaired by Assemblyman John Wisniewski has subpoenaed all documents and correspondence between the Port Authority and the Christie administration regarding the toll hike.

Wisniewski was one of the original skeptics of the hike when it was announced, and he still isn’t buying it.

“My suspicion is — I think it’s pretty well understood as fact — that the original announcement of whatever the toll increase was was all theater, so that would allow the governor to say, ‘No, no, it has to be lower,’ ” Wisniewski said in an interview following the most recent round of subpoenas.

For him and others, the toll hike scenario was too pat. How, the skeptics asked, could Christie not have known about the initial proposal when he had appointed two of his closest political allies to Port Authority leadership, Chairman David Samson and Baroni?

One source said complete responses to the latest subpoenas from the legislative committee would reveal that the bridge closures and the toll hike were engineered out of much the same playbook.

A minimum of agency officials were made aware of what was happening with the toll hike and sworn to secrecy under the implied threat of losing their jobs, the six sources said. And both actions included some of the same players.

“He’ll find emails,” the official said of Wisniewski, who co-chairs the joint committee with state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). “And he’ll find the emails between Baroni, Wildstein and the governor’s office. And he’ll also find emails between Baroni and Cuomo’s office.”

So we now have a direct connection between Cuomo's office and the actors who carried off Christie's Bridgegate scheme using the same "playbook" to carry out the PA toll hikes and PATH fare increase.

Cuomo's PA man, Patrick Foye, has been subpoenaed by the US attorney in New Jersey investigating the Bridgegate matter.

I have posted before about Cuomo has played fast and loose with his own Bridgegate timeline (and if you haven't read the terrific Zack Fink Salon piece on that part of the story, please do so.)

I have surmised that if prosecutors dig deep enough, they will find a connection between Cuomo and Bridgegate.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino's campaign has insinuated that Christie is helping Cuomo in his re-election bid despite being the head of the National Governors Association in the opposing party, perhaps in return for Cuomo's help in the Bridgegate matter.

That we now know there is a direct connection between Cuomo's office and Christie cronies in the Bridgegate scheme means there needs to be a thorough investigation of what Cuomo's role in these PA games has been.

I am hoping Paul Fishman, the US attorney in NJ, is doing some of that investigating because I am doubtful that Dems in the NJ Assembly and Senate are going to do it no matter what Wisniewski or Weinberg say.

And if not Fishman in NJ, then perhaps Preet Bharara in New York as part of the larger Moreland mess - he is allegedly looking into Cuomo's interference in the Moreland Commissions subpoenas of his own donors.

It's pretty clear Cuomo's got some funkiness going on at the Port Authority.

It's time to get to the bottom of that rank smell.

Governor Cuomo Plays Pre-Election Games With Bridge/Road Toll Hikes

It is important that Governor Cuomo be made to publicly defend what his administration is doing here:

ALBANY—The state Public Authorities Control Board on Wednesday approved a controversial loan for the Tappan Zee replacement bridge, but not before the amount was cut in half without explanation and officials admitted for the first time there would be a toll hike to pay for the project.

The board voted to approve a $255 million loan from the state clean water fund to pay for parts of the $4 billion bridge project. State officials acted as if that was the plan all along, even though a printed copy of the meeting agenda included the original $511 million request that was to be voted on Wednesday. The Environmental Facilities Corporation, largely comprised of appointees by Governor Andrew Cuomo, approved the full loan last month.

Thruway Authority director Tom Madison admitted at the meeting that bridge tolls would likely rise next year to help pay for the replacement, but would not say by how much. The admission was the first acknowledgement by the Cuomo administration that systemwide toll hikes are coming, but after the election.

Cuomo is using money from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, money that is meant for sewer upgrades, but he managed to finagle it to build a bridge instead, one that he is touting as a major accomplishment of his administration.

But not everyone thinks Cuomo's doings are on the up and up:

Republican Senator John DeFrancisco of Syracuse, who threatened to vote against the loan weeks ago, said he was the one who cut the $511 million in half because not all of the funds would be spent appropriately.

“We got half of the loan off the table until we see what's being done with this part of the project to make sure it's spent appropriately,” DeFrancisco said.

DeFrancisco said $100 million was for engineering and other items that were “difficult to pin down.” He said he was concerned the Cuomo administration had “fudged” some of the intended uses of the loan because they had nothing to do with environmental projects.

“What this is all about is the Thruway Authority and, indirectly, the governor doesn't want to be able to say what the actual increase in the bridge toll is going to be, that's what it amounts to,” DeFrancisco said. “The plan is obvious, borrow money and then pay for it out of tolls.”

This is similar to the game Cuomo played with toll increases on the NY/NJ bridges and tunnels, as well as the PATH fare - though that time he had help from his pal, New Jersey Criminal-In-Chief Chris Christie.

It's called "Head Fake The Toll Hikes":

On Aug. 5, 2011, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey issued a jaw-dropping proposal to immediately raise bridge and tunnel tolls by $4 for E-ZPass subscribers and $7 for cash customers, followed by another increase in 2014. The proposed hikes amounted to a 75 percent increase for E-ZPass users and 112.5 percent for those paying cash.

The authority also proposed PATH fares go up $1, from $1.75 to $2.75.

The reaction was swift and angry, with commuters and lawmakers blasting the increases.
Gov. Chris Christie, who said he had no advance knowledge of the proposal, was among them.

“You’re kidding, right?” Christie told reporters three days after the announcement, describing what he said when briefed on the proposal.

But within two weeks, after a blizzard of 36 press releases by the Port Authority on behalf of toll hike supporters and after public hearings packed with union laborers backing the plan, Christie and his New York counterpart, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, consented to a more modest increase. Even then, the governors conditioned their approval on a top-to-bottom financial review of the agency.

The thing is, a former Port Authority official told The Star-Ledger, “It was all bullshit.”
From the start, the fix was in, said that former official and five others who occupied key Port Authority posts when the toll hike was rolled out and eventually approved.

The whole process, the authority officials said, was orchestrated from the outset to make the governors look good even as they reached deeper, through the long arm of the authority, into the public’s pockets.

The former Port Authority officials (five who are no longer with the agency and one who is still there) outlined the strategy and execution of the plan in separate interviews with The Star-Ledger. Each asked that their names not be used because they feared repercussions from speaking out even after they had left the agency.

The first proposal disclosed to the public, the former officials explained, was deliberately inflated. Also planned was Christie and Cuomo’s shocked — shocked! — reaction and an unusual one-day series of eight public hearings. Those hearings were all held during the morning or evening rush hours to discourage attendance by irate commuters, but were stacked with union members who backed the hike because of the construction jobs it would fund.

All this, the sources said, was designed to set up the governors’ ostensibly reluctant approval of a more modest hike, accompanied by their stern admonitions that this was it and that the agency had better get its financial house in order once and for all.

But it was all Hollywood on the Hudson, the six sources said, scripted all the way through.

“They knew what the toll increase would be,” said one former official. “They set the governors up to look like heroes. It was all a farce.”

BTW, the PA officials Cuomo and Christie played "Headfake The Toll Hikes" with were some of the same officials involved in Christie's Bridgegate - Bill Baroni and David Samson.

So if you're looking for a connection between Cuomo and Bridgegate, there is one - he got help in his PA toll hike game from the same guys who worked the GWB bridge closure.

In any case, the game Cuomo is playing with the toll hikes around the state as a consequence of the TZB work is the same game he and Christie played with the Port Authority toll hikes and PATH fare increase.

And, to quote the former PA official when talking about the Port Authority toll hikes that were engineered in such a way as to make the governors look like heroes by lowering the increases from what was originally released, "It's all bullshit."

Cuomo needs to be called on this BEFORE the election - how much are the tolls going up on the bridges, tunnels and roads as a result of the TZB work?

Why is there no plan available for the TZB to be viewed by the public?

Why hasn't Cuomo owned up that there would have to be toll hikes?

Cuomo needs to be held accountable here.

More Bad News For Christie

Another week, another criminal investigation:

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said this week that it is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to the series of inquiries that have been ordered since the lane-closing scandal at the George Washington Bridge last year.

The disclosure came in a 228-page report on Thursday to potential buyers of the agency’s bonds, in which the Port Authority said the commission was conducting “a parallel investigation in one of the matters under review” by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

The inquiry by Mr. Vance’s office is focused, at least in part, on the agency’s handling of roadway construction projects, including the Pulaski Skyway and the Bayonne and Goethals Bridges, according to several people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that investigation is continuing.

About $1 billion in planned Port Authority spending was diverted to the Pulaski Skyway project, championed by the administration of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. The bridge, connecting Newark and Jersey City, is operated by the state, not the Port Authority.

Two of the people said the district attorney’s office had issued subpoenas to a number of construction companies involved in the projects, as well as officials at the Port Authority.

The new document, which The Record of Hackensack, N.J., reported about on Thursday, acknowledged that the agency had received and was responding to “several grand jury subpoenas” from the office of Mr. Vance; the United States attorney in Newark, Paul J. Fishman; and an investigative committee of the New Jersey Legislature.

The S.E.C. declined to comment. A spokesman for the Port Authority would not confirm the content of the commission’s investigation, referring only to the agency’s statement in the bond document.

According to the Bergen Record:

Christie has said previously that he is confident that there was nothing improper about the Port Authority agreement to fund the Pulaski Skyway, Route 139, Wittpenn Bridge and Portway New Road – noting that lawyers from the Port Authority and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office reviewed the plan.

"I relied upon the advice of lawyers on both sides of the river to come to that conclusion and I'm confident that if the SEC reviews it — if that's what they're doing — that they'll come to the same conclusion that those dozens of lawyers came to on both sides of the Hudson River," Christie said in April. 

Sure they will.

Governor Cuomo's Complicity In Christie Bridgegate Scandal Gets Some Scrutiny

Cuomo already has to worry about Preet Bharara's nosing around in his Moreland Commission wreckage and now there's this:

It hasn’t been a great few weeks for New York governor Andrew Cuomo. He got in a public spat with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara for closing down an anti-corruption commission, his budget was roundly criticized by many in his own party, and a new poll shows him losing serious ground to his Republican opponent if he gets a challenge on the left.

But another unwelcome development for the governor flew mostly under the radar, and has national implications. While the George Washington bridge scandal focused exclusively on the role of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the bridge is controlled by a joint New York-New Jersey bi-state authority – and last week Cuomo’s hand-picked Executive Director of the Port Authority, Patrick Foye, was issued a subpoena by the New Jersey legislative committee investigating the flap.

Investigators believe there are omissions in the carefully crafted timeline put forth by the Cuomo Administration about what they knew about the lane closures, and how they responded. ”Lots of questions need to be asked to fill in the blanks,” the committee’s Co-Chair John Wisniewski told Salon.

In a worst-case scenario, Cuomo’s version of events could come under great scrutiny and cause a number of new political and legal headaches. In a best-case scenario, he can no longer simply wave off questions about the issue as merely a New Jersey problem – and his office’s communications may now be exposed to investigators.

Read the whole piece by NY1 reporter Zack Fink over at Salon.

It's long but illuminating.

It becomes pretty clear by the end of the piece that

A) Cuomo knows more about the scandal than he is letting on
B) He's hiding when he learned about the closures and what he did after he learned about them
C) His Port Authority guy, Patrick Foye, is covering for him

Cuomo and Christie colluded to raise bridge/tunnel tolls and the PATH fare and as the Salon piece makes clear, they are on friendly terms, have met for dinner, and may have colluded on more than just the Port Authority fare and toll hikes.

It's time to find out if Cuomo helped Christie from his end in any way in this GWB scandal.

Here's hoping the NJ legislative committee looks to find out and whets the appetite of a US attorney in either New York or New Jersey to look more into Cuomo's complicity in the GWB mess.

New Criminal Investigation Into Christie And The Port Authority May Cause Headaches For Cuomo Too (UPDATED - 7:45 PM)

From the NY Times:

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has subpoenaed documents from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey concerning a range of the troubled agency’s major construction projects, including several that have come under scrutiny as a result of the politically charged George Washington Bridge lane closings, a person with knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The subpoena seeks records for an investigation that is in its earliest stages, the person said. But it nonetheless represents a significant development for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and senior members of his administration, who have been enveloped in the scandal that grew out of the September closing of two access lanes at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J.

This new criminal inquiry opens what is in essence a third investigative front focused on the actions of Mr. Christie and his appointees, who are already the subject of an investigation by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Newark, and one by a New Jersey legislative committee.

The new inquiry, being conducted by the Rackets Division in the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., brings to bear an additional staff of seasoned corruption investigators who are most likely focused in large measure on a different set of corruption allegations and are seeking evidence of state crimes, rather than violations of federal laws.

Cuomo is not named in the Times article, but Cuomo got together with Christie a few years back to gin up Port Authority toll increases and PATH fare hikes so that both governors could raid the Port Authority coffers for cash to use on their own projects.

If the Manhattan DA is looking at what Christie was doing at the Port Authority and just who he was doing it with, Cuomo ought to be investigated too since little happens at the Port Authority that the governors of NY and NJ aren't both aware of.

We know too that Christie called Cuomo over the Bridgegate matter to get him to call of the dogs from his end.

Also, if they're looking at the WTC and Downtown Traffic Hub, well, that's Cuomo's part of the Port Authority.

Christie's got serious problems now, with three separate criminal investigations looking at him.

Cuomo's got some vulnerability over some of these matters too and so, while the primary thrust of the investigation is aimed at Christie and his political allies, I bet Sheriff Andy isn't going to be too exited to find out there's a criminal investigation into the Port Authority and such.

We just may yet find out what Cuomo knew about Bridgegate, when he knew it and what he did (or didn't) do about it.

UPDATE: WSJ says Vance didn't subpoena Cuomo or his aides:

Mr. Vance didn't ask for everything, this person said: While the subpoena sought correspondence among top officials of the authority and Mr. Christie's administration, it didn't seek similar correspondence with the office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who shares control of the authority.

So definitely a much bigger problem for Christie than Cuomo.

Nonetheless, with Vance now looking into Christie and the Port Authority in matters that touch on Cuomo's jurisdiction at the same time that Preet Bharara is taking over the Moreland Commission work that Cuomo and his aides allegedly meddled in, we'll have a lot to keep an eye on.