The Obamas To Visit the World Trade Center Today
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will be in NYC today to attend two fundraisers, but they’re also here to visit the World Trade Center site and view the progress (as well as cause commuter headaches due to the WTC PATH station being closed during the duration of their visit).
In particular, they’ll be touring 1WTC (aka the Freedom Tower) to see how far the work has progressed.
That’s all well and good, but the President has to do more than just view the progress. He ought to inform the Port Authority and both Gov. Christie and Gov. Cuomo to get a deal done on the WTC memorial and restart construction on that part of the rebuilding of the site. It’s stalled for months because of financial disputes between the Port Authority and the WTC Memorial Foundation, which is headed up by Joe Daniels and NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
The Port Authority is once again in the wrong here - they’re making demands on the memorial foundation that make little sense, and their ongoing delays on both the museum and other parts of the rebuilding have led to massive cost overruns that the agency can ill afford.