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Christie top lieutenants said Sandy money ‘connected’ to city redevelopment plan: Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer

The mayor of Hoboken accused a pair of top Gov. Chris Christie lieutenants of a “Sopranos”-style shakedown, denying the city hurricane aid over a delayed redevelopment plan.

Mayor Dawn Zimmer said New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and a second official warned her that millions in Hurricane Sandy relief for her city were tied to the approval of the Rockefeller Group’s proposal.

In classic Jersey style, the blunt conversation with former prosecutor Guadagno occurred on May 13 in the parking lot of a Hoboken ShopRite, Zimmer told MSNBC in a Saturday interview.

Guadagno “pulled me aside ... and she said, ‘I know it’s not right, I know these things should not be connected, but they are. And if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it,’ ” Zimmer recalled.

“I mean,” Zimmer added, “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.”

The Manhattan-based Rockefeller Group, a global real estate business, boasts close ties to Christie.

Zimmer, 45, the mother of two sons, kept a diary detailing the disturbing meetings held just four days apart. In one excerpt cited by MSNBC, she expressed her disgust with the Republican governor, who is weighing a 2016 presidential run.

“I was emotional about Gov. Christie,” she wrote. “I thought he was honest. I thought he was moral. I thought he was something 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 alleged refusal to assist the waterlogged city on the banks of the Hudson River came as the governor was starring in a $25 million ad campaign touting New Jersey’s hurricane comeback.

Christie, Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable and the Rockefeller Group all issued statements denying the allegations. Zimmer said Constable delivered the second threat from Trenton.

“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,” said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak. “What or who is driving her now to say such outlandishly false things is anyone’s guess.”

Zimmer said Hoboken, which was seriously flooded by the 2012 hurricane, requested $127 million in Sandy funds — and received a total of $342,000. Hoboken suffered an estimated $100 million in private property damage, and an additional $10 million in public property destruction.

“There is a growing chorus of public officials speaking out against New Jersey's bully-in-chief,” said Democratic National Committee spokesman Moe Elleithee.

Members of the two state legislative panels investigating Bridgegate immediately said the Zimmer charges deserved the same scrutiny. “The allegations discussed today by Mayor Zimmer are serious and yet again raise concern about abuse of government power,” said Assembly Investigation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski.

New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Bergen County Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Investigation Committee, said her panel was just as interested. “We have a respected mayor with diary entries and obviously what seems like an agonizing decision to come forward,” she said. “Then we have a denial from the administration. This is another in a long line of issues that the investigating committees are going to have to sort out.”

Zimmer became mayor in 2009 after her predecessor resigned in a corruption scandal unearthed by former federal prosecutor Christie.

The Rockefeller Group, hoping to develop a 3-acre parcel, hired former Christie cabinet officer Lori Grifa as a lobbyist. And the group’s law firm is Wolff & Samson — the home of Port Authority Chairman David Samson, who was handpicked for the position by Christie.

Samson was among the members of the Christie inner circle issued subpoenas last week by an Assembly panel probing Bridgegate. The Daily News reported that Samson is likely to step down in the next month.

While Bridgegate focused on Fort Lee and the GWB, this possible scandal involved the city near the Holland Tunnel’s mouth.

The Rockefeller Group hoped to press forward with its lucrative development plan for a three-block stretch of north Hoboken. The commercial development was initially planned with a 40-story office tower — making it the tallest building in town.

Four days after the Guadagno meeting, Zimmer said, she received a similar warning from Constable. The two were together for a public TV program on Sandy recovery when Constable linked her support of the Rockefeller Group project to recovery funds, Zimmer said.

“The buzz is that you are against (redevelopment),” she quoted Constable as telling her. “If you move that forward, the money would start flowing to you.”

Zimmer said she had no plans to back off her charges now that she’s gone public. “I’d be more than willing to testify under oath, and answer any questions and provide any documents, take a lie detector test,” she said. “And you know, my question back to all of them is, ‘Would all of you?’” http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hoboken-mayor-dawn-zimmer-christie
-top-lieutenants-sandy-money-connected-redevelopment-plan-article-1.1583828

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Photo debunks another lie from team Christie

At issue is an event in May of last year, when a group of officials gathered for a public television special on Sandy recovery. Zimmer sat alongside Richard Constable, Christie’s community affairs commissioner, and according to the mayor, Constable told her if she moved forward with a specific development deal, “they money would start flowing” to Hoboken.

Today, Christie’s office disseminated a piece from the Asbury Park Press, quoting Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty (D), who was part of the same panel.

Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty, who also was a panelist, said he didn’t hear a conversation between Zimmer and Constable.

“I sat next to Mayor Zimmer and, if I recall correctly, (Constable) was on my other side,” Doherty said.

If true, that would be a pretty important detail – Zimmer’s version of events makes clear that she was sitting next to the Christie administration official. But is Doherty’s memory accurate?

It is not. As is clear in the above photo, Doherty’s mistaken. Seated in the front row, from right to left, is Doherty, then Zimmer, then Constable. Patrick Murray, the director of Monmouth University’s polling institute, is on the far-left side of that front row.

It’s not surprising that the governor’s office hopes to undermine the accuracy of the mayor’s claims, but in this case, her version is at least plausible – she was seated next to Constable, just as she claimed. Doherty’s account, which Team Christie is circulating, is simply mistaken.

That does not mean, of course, that we can say with certainty what, if anything, Zimmer and Constable discussed. What’s more, the public television station that aired the special has no recording of the pre-show conversations.

Still, this afternoon’s attempt to debunk the mayor’s story is off-base. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/fact-checking-key-zimmer-claim

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“I have had no contact with David Wildstein in a long time, a long time, well before the election. You know, I could probably count on one hand the number of conversations I’ve had with David since he worked at the Port Authority. I did not interact with David.”

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