Get set for another Bridgegate. That’s what an aide to Gov. Cuomo suggests could happen if New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy restores the Port Authority power-sharing deal that led to the 2013 scandal.
Murphy’s folks last week confirmed that the new governor wants to revive the position of deputy executive director at the agency, its No. 2 spot. Under a deal dating to the ’90s, New York’s gov chose the executive director, while Jersey’s picked the board chairman and DED.
The idea was to make sure both states had roughly equal power and access to the $8 billion a year in funds the bistate agency spent. But the deputy post became a job for a New Jersey saboteur.
In 2013, recall, DED Bill Baroni was one of three top Jersey officials behind the Bridgegate scandal: the infamous lane closures on the Fort Lee approaches to the GW Bridge that were meant to trigger traffic jams and punish that city’s mayor for not backing then-Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election.
Baroni and Christie aide Bridget Anne Kelly wound up sentenced to jail time for that. Another Jersey PA official, David Wildstein, got probation after pleading guilty and helping the prosecutors.
In the aftermath, reformers tried to scrap the DED spot, hoping to end the PA’s internal Jersey-New York war. New York passed a law to that effect, but Jersey didn’t. And though the deputy post has remained vacant since 2015, it still technically exists.
Christie, tainted by the scandal, couldn’t object to Cuomo taking the upper hand at the PA, but Murphy wants Jersey’s power (and, surely, patronage) back. A Democratic progressive, he needs all the cash he can grab to fund his bigger-government dreams.
To be fair, Murphy is now stuck with Christie’s chairman, Kevin O’Toole, and Cuomo’s chief executive, Rick Cotton. It’s not unreasonable for him to want his own guy in the mix.
Team Cuomo pretends it’s all about honesty: “The split authority between the executive director and deputy executive director was the source of the politicization of the Port Authority and directly led to Bridgegate,” Cuomo aide Dani Lever told Politico. “We cannot take steps backward.”
Maybe so — but Cuomo plainly wants to add to his advantage. Last year, he got the state Legislature to create another PA inspector general answering only to him — a weapon against anyone at the agency, from either state, who won’t do what New York’s governor wants.
Murphy’s not playing nice, either: He reportedly didn’t even give Cuomo a heads-up about his plan to fill the No. 2 spot.
Potential conflict is baked in as long as the congressionally created agency is beholden to two masters — the governors of two states, who each look out for their own constituents. But individuals can make a difference.
When Baroni departed, leaving now-MTA boss Pat Foye to head the PA unfettered, things ran smoothly. If the govs don’t agree that Cotton and O’Toole are doing as well, they need to find some compromise — one that defuses Jersey’s worries about Cuomo’s IG, as well.
If the war escalates, average New Yorkers and Jerseyans, who depend on the agency to oversee the area’s bridges, airports, PATH train and ports, are sure to be the losers.