Christie and the Mayor of Atlantic City have a political war going on

[flamingdem]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ripped Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford on Monday evening for supposedly asking residents to stay in city shelters instead of evacuating.

“Despite my admonition to evacuate, he gave them comfort for some reason to stay,”

Christie said the result is “a large number of people” still in Atlantic City, “and at this juncture there’s no other way for us to go in and get them. They’re going to have to ride out the storm there until at least 7 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83029.html#ixzz2AjouBsCO
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83029.html#ixzz2AjokgqZL


Previously:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/atlantic-city_pleasantville_brigantine/atlantic-city-mayor-lorenzo-langford-responds-to-governor-chris-christie/article_37555ae6-194e-11e2-a9ef-001a4bcf887a.html

Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford responds to Governor Chris Christie's recent criticism

abeled a failure by the governor, Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford has hit back in a scathing two-page letter that pointed to increased violence throughout the state.

During an Oct. 9 speech in Jersey City, the governor said Langford “has failed, and he’s impossible to work with in any kind of significant way.”

“I will not cower or simply roll with the punches,” Langford replied in a letter faxed Thursday to the Governor’s Office.

The governor talked about Atlantic City’s problems after the city reached 15 homicides for the year last month. In his response, Langford said if he is to be judged by that number, then Christie should be held accountable for the number of homicides in the state.

“For the record, New Jersey is now home to ‘the most violent city in America,’” Langford writes of Camden. “This was not always the case. In fact, prior to you becoming governor, we never had this distinction.”

The mayor goes on to say that the plague of violence and murder on urban cities can be traced to the manufacture and distribution of handguns.

“As governor, you have failed miserably to abate this problem,” the mayor writes.

In his comments to reporters earlier this month, Christie said he has “grave concerns about the leadership in that city, and I’ve made that very clear over and over again.”

But Langford questioned the governor’s leadership, and claimed that Christie’s “bait and switch policies” that shifted the budget burden to the municipalities are responsible for laying off more police officers in the state than at any other time.


ALSO:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/christie-says-atlantic-city-mayor-lorenzo-langford-should-be-ashamed/article_c1b41dce-2e51-11e0-82c8-001cc4c002e0.html

ATLANTIC CITY — A verbal battle between Mayor Lorenzo Langford and state officials escalated Tuesday when Republican Gov. Chris Christie and the state’s top Democrat, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, criticized him for recently likening the Atlantic City Tourism District plan to a “modern-day apartheid.”

“He is playing to the lowest common denominator,” Christie said when a reporter asked about the mayor’s comments, which he made Tuesday and previously to another media organization. “He should be ashamed of himself.”

Langford, who refused to attend the governor’s bill signing Tuesday, said residents have likened the plan to the structure of the South African apartheid, saying that the state is creating geographical boundaries with its new Tourism District, “one for the haves and one for the have-nots.” He then said the apartheid reference “has some validity.”

Christie seized on the mayor’s comments to justify his call for change in Atlantic City, claiming the city’s current leadership seems content with the status quo.

“Look, I understand that he didn’t want this to happen,” the governor said. “I understand that. But the people of this region have been waiting too long for effective leadership in this city.”

Sweeney — Langford’s fellow Democrat — then took the podium to continue the criticism, calling for an end to the “grandstanding” and “racial baiting.”

“This city needs leadership. This city needs to get things done,” said Sweeney, D-Salem, Gloucester, Cumberland.

After hearing the governor’s comments, the mayor stood firm on his analogy, but stressed that he did not want to turn his opposition into a “verbal joust” between him and Christie. His comments, he said, are directed at the plan, not any one individual.

[flamingdem]

1. Addendum: Langford didn't want to order his people to leave because they are poor

and he knows that many had nowhere to go. It looks like all the arguments with Christie are around these issues, and both are right and wrong, let's hope that Langford didn't really screw up. It depends on the degree of flooding and power outages I guess.