IN a Sept. 25 column, I raised the impolite question: “Does Gov. Paterson have any idea what he’s talking about when it comes to Ground Zero?” Prompting that worry were Paterson’s statements indicating he didn’t know that the Freedom Tower was already under construction – among other odd remarks he made about the World Trade Center site.
Yesterday’s Post editorial on “Non-Filer’s Syndrome”-afflicted gubernatorial counselor Charles O’Byrne asked: “Can O’Byrne be trusted to serve as Paterson’s eyes?”
The answer to both questions is plain: No.
Doubt it? Just take a stroll around Lower Manhattan – where evidence mounts that no one in the inner circle of a governor who is effectively blind is sharing with him what’s actually going on.
Last month, Paterson told The Post: “Construction of the beautiful skyscrapers will commence” only after “the memorial and transportation hub are fully under way.” That bizarre “will commence” – as if construction hadn’t already started – was no off-the-cuff remark, but a prepared statement his office gave us a full day after we asked it to clarify his earlier comments in a speech.
Many in the media have given Paterson the benefit of the doubt on fixing the state budget. That’s partly because he’s made some promising efforts so far, and Albany’s wheels move very slowly and out of sight.
But the simple question of whether a skyscraper is or isn’t already under construction is beyond debate. And Paterson’s manifest ignorance could not have been an incidental slip-up under pressure of time.
With 24 hours to craft a response, you’d think somebody close to the governor would advise him what has been visible to the public for many months – namely, that one of those skyscrapers, the tallest-of-them-all Freedom Tower, was well out of the ground; that steel and concrete were visible – and that the Port Authority had already bought over $1 billion worth of steel for the rest of it.
Or, just possibly, did our question for Paterson happen to come on a day when O’Byrne, his closest aide, was suffering one of those al- leged acute-depression attacks that kept him from paying income tax for five years?
It was the most shocking, but not the only, indication that Paterson is clueless as to Downtown’s condition.
One block east of the WTC site is the metastizing debacle of the MTA’s Fulton Street Transit Center – a project that has reduced both an entire blockfront and a nearby corner to dust. Despite repeated promises to come up with a plan for the site, the MTA has yet to propose anything and seems inclined to wait until kingdom come.
The MTA is of course a state agency. The governor is supposed to control it, but Paterson is completely aloof.
It isn’t unfair to ask: Has Charles O’Byrne communicated to Paterson that two large holes in the ground now exist where viable buildings once stood, as if terrorists had again struck one block east of Ground Zero?
What about the former Deutsche Bank building on Liberty Street? Its takedown is in the hands of the LMDC – another state agency. Yet the only voice of urgency about dismantling the macabre remains has come not from Paterson, but from Mayor Bloomberg.
The clearest hint that O’Byrne has done little to enlighten Paterson on all this came Oct. 2. At a televised press conference, the governor parroted language from Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward’s “Roadmap” report.
Several of his statements – “we now know what we’re going to build” and “when it’s going to be finished” – were lifted verbatim from the report, like those of a student who cribs from an encyclopedia while having no clue as to what they mean.
Limited vision needn’t be a barrier to holding the governorship or any high office. But Paterson needs “the knowledge necessary to run the state,” as The Post editorial put it yesterday. When it comes to Ground Zero, he clearly isn’t getting it.
scuozzo@nypost.com