NYT: Gov. Christie/Port Authority being investigated for Pulaski Skyway improvements

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In wake of a report claiming that the U.S. Attorney General in New Jersey will be dropping indictments pertaining to Bridgegate in the foreseeable future, Governor Chris Christie and the Port Authority now have two more high-profile investigators looking into their involvement of the Pulaski Skyway repairs, according to The New York Times.

By John Heinis/The Hudson County View

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Governor Chris Christie (Facebook photo)

The report says that The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are reviewing a $1.8 billion agreement made in 2011  to repair the dilapidated roadway which connects Jersey City and Newark.

“The inquiries into securities law violations focus on a period of 2010 and 2011 when Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressed the Port Authority to pay for extensive repairs to the Skyway and related road projects, diverting money that was to be used on a new Hudson River rail tunnel that Mr. Christie canceled in October 2010,” the article states.

The NYT refers to the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) tunnel project, which would’ve been a commuter rail system that ran between Secaucus in New Jersey and Manhattan in New York.  The system would have been an NJ Transit operation.

When Christie cancelled the $8.7 billion project nearly four years ago, the decision was highly controversial since $600 million of federal government money had been invested into the project, which was also supposed to created upwards of 6,000 jobs.

While the Pulaski Skyway is a state-owned entity, The Port Authority ended up footing the bill for the repairs, rationalizing the move by calling the Skyway an access road to the Lincoln Tunnel.

That notion is allegedly being heavily scrutinized by the Manhattan DA’s Office and the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, since it could be a potential violation of The Martin Act, New York state law which aims to prevent “intentionally deceiving bond holders,” as the Times puts it.

 


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