N.Y.-N.J. War Brewing Over New Ground Zero Costs
Despicable:Corzine,Patterson& Spitzer before him,are the worst. And where are Shrill,Chuckie Cheese Schumer & Booberg?They are spitting on victims, families, & the First Defenders,nearly 7 years after 9/11.
A battle is brewing between New York and New Jersey over who will pay for the billions of dollars in expected cost overruns at ground zero.
Governor Corzine through a spokesman said yesterday he was “dismayed” a day after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced it could not say when construction at the World Trade Center site would be completed or how much it would cost. The spokesman for Mr. Corzine, Jim Gardner, said the governor “does not want to see these cost overruns and delays become an excuse to reduce funding commitments to projects that are already in the capital plan.”
According to a number of sources, Mr. Corzine is sending a clear signal to both the Port Authority and to Governor Paterson: Keep your hands off the funding that is already in place for the more New Jersey-friendly transit projects — specifically the ARC Tunnel project and the PATH transit hub.
The Port Authority, which owns the 16-acre World Trade Center site, is a bistate agency and Messrs. Paterson and Corzine hold equal sway over its leadership. The governor of each state appoints six members to the board of commissioners and both governors retain the right to veto the actions of commissioners from their respective states.
“To hear Governor Corzine speak out proves that New Jersey, which is in dire need of money and doesn’t have hundreds of quasi-government agencies like New York does, wants to make sure they get their share of the swag,” a former executive director of the Port Authority, George Marlin, said in an interview. “They must be getting nervous that this money they are depending on may be in jeopardy.”
On Monday, the executive director of the Port Authority, Christopher Ward, said an accurate cost and scheduling assessment at the site was impossible due to at least 15 unresolved decisions.[…]