Newly released e-mails indicate Gov. Chris Christie’s administration pressured the mayor of Hoboken to approve a huge development project even during a meeting centered on Hurricane Sandy relief funds, according to a report.
One e-mail to Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer lists the first item on the agenda for a meeting about Sandy funds was “review of concepts for flood control measures at Rockefeller property,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The property refers to a billion-dollar complex that was being proposed for the city by a Christie-connected developer.
Zimmer requested the meeting after a severe rainstorm last May flooded Hoboken and raised concerns that the city could be devastated again.
She said she would not discuss the project at the meeting, the Times said.
The next day, Zimmer received a call saying Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno would be visiting her in Hoboken.
At that infamous meeting, Zimmer claims Guadagno and another Christie staffer demanded she push forward the redevelopment plan or risk losing all the Sandy recovery money.
Guadagno has denied the claim, which came on the heels of the Bridgegate scandal that has been dogging Christie.
Christie is already facing heat over the “Bridgegate” scandal
Also Wednesday, termination of a separate Hurricane Sandy contract has led two New Jersey congressmen to request a federal investigation. Jersey Reps. Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell Jr., both Democrats, asked US Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan to review the Christie administration’s “sudden cancellation” of a $68 million deal with a Hammerman & Gainer Inc.
The New Orleans-based company was hired last May to oversee the distribution of $600 million in federal Sandy relief for homeowners after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New Jersey’s coast in 2012.