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PA NEWS BLACKOUT DOWNRIGHT SINISTER

ON behalf of all Ground Zero-watchers, I’d like to thank the Port Authority for opening a new information portal to the public.

The detailed Freedom Tower floor plans left in a city garbage can might be six months old, but they’re more reliable than most of what passes for “news” out of the agency.

Maybe we didn’t need to know that letters for the “Freedom Tower” sign are to be “fabricated from 1/16-inch- thick stainless-steel faces, cleanly welded to each other.”

But it’s good to know that somewhere deep inside the Kremlin-like PA, somebody has a handle on this “iconic” project. Of all the parties involved in rebuilding the World Trade Center site, the PA is the worst at sharing any reliable information.

It claimed, right up to the last minute, that it would finish work on the “bathtub” by Jan. 1 so Larry Silverstein could start building new office towers; but it took six weeks longer.

It continues to fudge the truth about the new PATH terminal – when it will be finished, what it will look like and what it will cost.

Maybe the PA doesn’t mean to lie. But its politically appointed leaders often don’t know themselves what’s going on.

Despite alleged control by two governors, the PA is really run by an entrenched bunch of bureaucrats and engineers. They view the chairman and executive director as political hacks to be humored for as long as they last in the job.

Since 9/11, I’ve seen time and again how out of touch top PA officials are with Ground Zero rebuilding.

A few months back, outgoing director Tony Shorris couldn’t immediately tell me whether widely reported leases with two government agencies at the Freedom Tower had actually been signed – as basic a question as any – but had to check with underlings first.

The uptight PA needed a better way to communicate, and I’m glad they’ve found it. I’m adding the trash to my morning media fix.

scuozzo@nypost.com