N.J. Mayor: Christie aides tied Sandy funds to development project
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer from a 2009 file photo. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Gov. Chris Christie’s administration is denying a New Jersey mayor’s claims it withheld millions of dollars in Superstorm Sandy recovery grants because she refused to sign off on a politically connected development.
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said on MSNBC on Saturday that Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno pulled her aside at a May event and told her “we are not going to be able to help you” unless a project favored by the Gov moves forward. Zimmer says she didn’t reveal the conversation until now because she feared no one would believe her.
Christie spokesman Colin Reed called Zimmer’s remarks “categorically false.”
New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski the chair of a legislative panel looking into the manufactured traffic jams says his committee will look into this new allegation of holding hurricane relief funds hostage.
Zimmer met with the U.S. Atttorney’s office in New Jersey on Sunday. The Star-Ledger reports that the mayor met with federal prosecutors in Newark for several hours providing a copy of her daily journal and other documents.
Christie is embroiled in another scandal involving traffic jams apparently manufactured to settle a political score.
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