NY Times; Fort Lee Officials Recall Chaos and Turmoil as Lanes to Bridge Were Closed

[Botany]

It would take a few months, and what federal prosecutors in a courtroom here called an extraordinary act of political retribution, before Mr. Sokolich would begin to suspect that, as he recalled on Tuesday, “someone must be mad at me.”

snip

As the first day of school dawned in September 2013, two access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were closed, locking Fort Lee in what Mr. Sokolich would call “concrete gridlock.” And his onetime friends in the Christie administration would not return his calls, texts or emails.

Mr. Sokolich took the stand in United States District Court here on Tuesday to tell the story at the center of the prosecution’s case: that Christie administration officials deliberately closed two of three access lanes to create a traffic jam in Fort Lee, all to punish the mayor for refusing to endorse Mr. Christie.

snip

Mr. Durando claimed that the lane closings were part of a traffic study, Mr. Bendul* recalled. “I told him it was a miserable failure. End it, stop it,” he said, adding that the gridlock was contributing to series of crises: a missing 4-year-old, a patient in cardiac arrest, a car accident and numerous complaints of road rage, among other problems.

“I told him bluntly that if anybody dies, I’m going to tell those people to sue him and everybody at the Port Authority,” said Mr. Bendul, who described Mr. Durando as “very nervous.”


* Ft. Lee Police chief

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/nyregion/fort-lee-police-chief-recalls-chaos-and-turmoil-as-bridge-lanes-were-closed.html?mabReward=A6&moduleDetail=recommendations-1&action=click&contentCollection=Arts&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article

[saltpoint]

1. Petty and ugly, with several people

in the inside loop, including very likely the Governor of New Jersey. Who, it was widely reported, was Trump's first choice for the veep nomination.

As ugly as the Trump-Pence campaign has been, it would have been a notch uglier if Christie had been named veep nom.

Christie's political fortunes are in shards already. More information coming out on the Fort Lee incident (and others) can make things worse for him. And he will have deserved the outcome.

[Botany]

3. It gets worse

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/nyregion/bridgegate-trial.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&src=recg&mabReward=A6&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Recommended&pgtype=article

NEWARK — On the morning that Patrick J. Foye ordered the reversal of the mysterious lane closings near the George Washington Bridge in September 2013, Bill Baroni appeared in his office, visibly on edge.

Mr. Baroni, Gov. Chris Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the bridge, beseeched Mr. Foye, the agency’s executive director, to reclose the lanes. He kept pressing even after Mr. Foye reminded him that ambulances had been caught in the gridlock caused by the lane closings — that “someone could have died.”

“He said the issue was important to Trenton,” Mr. Foye recalled on Wednesday during testimony in United States District Court. “I took that to be the governor’s office.”

Later that morning, Mr. Baroni went once more to Mr. Foye’s office and again asked him to close the lanes. “He said it was important to Trenton, and he said Trenton would or might call,” said Mr. Foye, who was appointed to his job by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “I took it to mean that the governor of New Jersey would call the governor of New York. I said they should call.”

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. This part strikes me as "what the hell?"

The lanes were closed on Sept. 9

but it was not until Sept 13 that ..."Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, who had not been informed about the closings,
orders the lanes reopened. "

So where was he and his power to open them, since Sept. 9?

[bettyellen]

12. I think he basically follows the NY end of things and this would cause no trouble in NY, so maybe

People were slow to concern him with it.

[saltpoint]

9. Yikes. eom

[malaise]

2. Bridgegate was a nasty vindictive act

and it makes me wonder what else politicians have done to citizens for power

[SamKnause]

4. Anything you can imagine and

anything you haven't imagined.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Alabama's Don Siegelman is one case in point... n/t

[Botany]

7. with holding relief funds might be a another example

n/t

[bettyellen]

14. Hoboken's flood money! Then they mysteriously cut PA train service to Hoboken only...

[scscholar]

10. This, and I wish someone would investigate WA for punishing Seattle

Again, lanes are closed at random. For several weekends, the state decided to close one direction of I-90 seemingly at random. It took me almost two hours to go ten miles to work. I saw no construction work. Same with my neighborhood where I live in Seattle which is known as the Mercer mess. The construction intentionally took years longer than it should have. The state hates Seattle and keeps doing this to us.

[spanone]

6. indict christie....NOW

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. One of Christie's aides who quit over this is now Trumps national campaign manager!

The apple does not slither far from the tree, does it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/nyregion/bridgegate-trial.html

[bettyellen]

13. He has since had the PA reduce the schedule of PATH trains to Hoboken since he is pissed at the

Mayor there for recounting how he threatened to withhold flood money unless she supported him.