New Panel Will Consider Port Authority Reforms
TED MANN
A study by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on whether it should change its ways could hinge on a delicate challenge, current and former agency officials say: how to blunt political agendas in an agency that has often served to divide spoils between the two states.
The authority launched a new "special oversight committee" last month in the wake of the George Washington Bridge scandal and questions about how members of the agency's board of commissioners disclose their business relationships.
What oversight will mean remains a moving target, commissioners acknowledged, though Richard Bagger, an appointee of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said the committee will have to examine policies for the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, and the process for recusing from votes or debates.
Questions about potential conflicts and recusals have dogged Port Authority Chairman David Samson, the top board appointee and a political ally of Mr. Christie since the bridge scandal triggered new scrutiny of Mr. Samson's leadership of the board.
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