Bridgegate and the adjacent empty blocks awaiting development in Fort Lee

[FarCenter]

Politics in NJ is greatly influenced by real estate interests, real estate developments, developers, engineering firms, study firms, construction firms, and construction unions.

A more plausible explanation of events is that a number of the above who were involved in a planned development of vacant land next to the bridge access ramp had not provided sufficient support to the Christie campaign. Limiting the access ramp from Martha Washington Way would devalue the planned billion dollar development there.

Support by a mayor of a middling size municipality is inconsequential. Support by real estate developers and friends is big bucks!

Following The Money On 'Bridgegate'

A couple very interesting new threads on the Bridgegate story. As I've mentioned, as the scope of the Bridge closure effort and the attempt to cover it up grow, payback for a small town Mayor's Christie non-endorsement has seemed increasingly implausible as a motive. This morning Brian Murphy went on Steve Kornacki's show to discuss a major billion dollar development project which would have been gravely impacted (perhaps scuttled altogether) by any permanent move to create a traffic choke point in Fort Lee. (There's an important disclosure that both men have been very forthcoming about: both worked for Wildstein in former lives when Wildstein ran a NJ politics website called PolitickerNJ.com.) But before getting to that there's another aspect of this story which I think deserves attention.

We know that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was on the phones with basically everyone as soon as the traffic started piling up last September 9th. But there's something about the nature of his correspondence with Port Authority Deputy Director Bill Baroni. He repeatedly goes out of his way to make clear he wants things handled quietly, without the press or politics getting pulled into the mix. In fact he appears to want the communication to be solely between them.

...

Now, one possible explanation for this is simply that Sokolich believes he has a much better chance of getting this resolved if politics or press attention doesn't get added to the mix. That is definitely a plausible and potentially sufficient explanation. But the logic can just as easily go in the opposite direction.

It seems like there's maybe more going on here - not cc'ing any colleagues on emails, asking for face to face meetings, signaling so clearly that he's not trying to make trouble. It just seems to go a bit beyond what you'd expect. And it may fit if Sokolich knew that the underlying issue was tied to high-stakes business investments - transactions which were not illegal or unethical but might not welcome or be helped by high-octane press attention.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Sokolich necessarily has dirty hands in this story. But I think he may have had more of a sense of what this was about than has yet come to light.

http://www.businessinsider.com/following-the-money-on-bridgegate-2014-1

[leftyohiolib]

1. that would explain the timing of the closure

[FarCenter]

2. See "Steve Kornacki's theory on the Christie scandal "

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4319407