Email suggests some Extra touches to inflict Maximum traffic pain in Fort Lee

[kpete]

Ryan Lizza
‏@RyanLizza
Context here is a little unclear, but email suggests some extra touches to inflict maximum traffic pain in Fort Lee: pic.twitter.com/bn9kqUbFIa


https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/422454314884694016/photo/1



Update: notice the word "test" is in quotes.
This by the engineers and regular staff.
They knew the jam was manufactured. And likely the misdirection of traffic as well.
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1269252/52356742#c21

[jsr]

1. Excellent find.

[dorkzilla]

2. CBX=Cross Bronx Expressway. n/t

[Kingofalldems]

3. Kick and Rec.

[neverforget]

4. This onion has a lot of layers.

[Blue Owl]

16. It's a rotten onion

And the more you peel, the more it stinks...

[Hekate]

24. Someone's gonna cry

[Segami]

5. Hmm, could this exchange be considered a

(criminal) ' conspiracy ' to ' intentionally ' bring harm to a city's residence by scheming to close down traffic lanes for no other reason than to congest their borough?

conspiracy |kənˈspirəsē|

noun (pl. conspiracies)

a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful: a conspiracy to destroy the government.
• the action of plotting or conspiring:

[geek tragedy]

6. R-I-C-O. nt

[jsr]

14. Conspiracy and racketeering should be Christie's middle name.

[DetlefK]

7. Or maybe the traffic study was just described to them as a "test".

Might be a false positive here.

(Someone posted elsewhere how "Charlie" in the emails might be code for Chris Christie himself, not knowing, that his chief of staff is named Charlie Rangel.)

[WhiteTara]

22. Rangel?

He's a democratic congressman (or perhaps ex)

[quakerboy]

32. Or maybe that is completely incorrect?

I dont know where you got that information, but his chief of staff is Kevin O'Dowd, and has been since January 2012. Got that tidbit from the governors website, describing his staff.

There was apparently a "charlie" in the administration. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/01/chris-christie-fort-lee-charlie-mckenna-text-message

As another poster pointed out Charles Rangel is a Democratic Congressman, from NY, not even the same state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._Rangel

Not sure where you connected the two, but there it is.

[DetlefK]

36. I read it in an online article...

Don't remember which one. IIRC it mentioned one Charlie Rangel as his Chief of Staff. I remember how I thought: "So that's Chris Christie's Charlie that poster on DU was talking about."

Weird.

[malaise]

8. Check out this culture of fear comment

http://www.wnyc.org/story/cuomo-and-christie-bridge-too-far/
<snip>
The setting was a hearing room in Trenton, where State Assembly member John Wisniewksi decided to exercise a rare authority – using his subpoena power to summon officials to explain why three lanes onto the George Washington Bridge had been abruptly closed in September, causing a week’s worth of traffic and sending the Port Authority’s Executive Director, Cuomo appointee Pat Foye, into a rage.

Wildstein called him on a Friday, Fulton said, to inform him that the lanes would be closed starting on a Monday. Had he told Foye and officials in Fort Lee? “His response was, don’t worry about that. We will take care of that.”

In fact, Wildstein did not take care of that. He did just the opposite, according to sworn testimony. Robert Durando, the General Manager of the George Washington Bridge, a 35-year employee of the Port Authority, put it like this: “Mr. Wildstein instructed me 'do not speak to anyone in Fort Lee.'”

Wildstein and Baroni, it turned out, hid the entire operation from Foye, even though it was quite obvious to Fulton and the whole bridge crew that it would be impossible to close three lanes without people noticing. A lot of people noticed.

Meanwhile, for employees like Fulton and Durando, who together have more than half a century’s worth of service in the Port Authority, all of this battling between appointees of New York and New Jersey is more than worrisome.

“Your testimony tells me there is a culture of fear – is there a culture of fear?” Wisniewski asked Durando.

There was a very long pause. Ten seconds. An eternity.

“I think your answer speaks for itself.”

[kpete]

10. very telling:

“I think your answer speaks for itself.”

thanks malaise
and peace,
kp

[jsr]

17. +1.

[OregonBlue]

9. Our PD spent period working the intersections. So was the Police Department in on it?

[starroute]

13. The Port Authority has its own police department

http://www.panynj.gov/police/services.html

The Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) is proud to serve the region and its people by making sure that every one of the Port Authority's customers, commuters and employees is safe.

The PAPD provides a wide array of services necessary to protect millions of people that use Port Authority facilities and services. Its capabilities range from traditional emergency services to commercial vehicle inspection, from K-9 patrol to aircraft rescue.

[OregonBlue]

15. Thanks. Still, it appears the port authority police department was in on it.

[starroute]

18. Maybe -- but I'd like to see some clarification

From the text of the email, I couldn't tell whether the PD was deliberately making things worse or if they were just diverting traffic within Fort Lee in hopes of making things better and it didn't work.

[George II]

19. I wouldn't say the PAPD was "in on it" - they take orders from the Port Authority...

...and Durando, in charge of GWB operations, has already testified that he was following direction from Wildstein because he was worried about his job.

[tblue37]

20. Some police were telling angry motorists to blame the Fort Lee mayor for the problems, so

*some* police department was in on it.

[dragonlady]

23. Or maybe just being used

One of the puzzling things about this is why residents would automatically blame the mayor for the problem, when everybody knows who runs the bridge. The PA police wouldn't know who ordered the traffic study, but if they were told it was the mayor, they might pass it along.

[tblue37]

28. Perhaps, but the things I have read seem to suggest that the cops were

rather gleefully emphatic about informing angry motorists that this was all the mayor's fault and that they should "blame their mayor." Even if they were not part of the plan, they seem to have been delighted at the opportunity to use the mess to stick it to the mayor.

OTOH, maybe they were being similarly duped by the conspirators and were themselves simply angry at the mayor because they had themselves been falsely led to believe that he had somehow orchestrated such a SNAFU for his own nefarious reasons.

I sure hope that *all* the details of this nasty plot get dug up and exposed. I hope we get to know who ALL the conspirators were and that they all end up paying hefty fines and serving significant jail time.

[dragonlady]

33. You're right, there are so many more details to be uncovered

This will be an interesting story for a long time.

[pnwmom]

11. So two new names are involved: Michael Diculescu and Jennifer Bates. Who are they?

Other than people who were reported to on September 9.

[JBoy]

21. Diculescu is the principal traffic engineer for the port authority

Bates is a senior traffic engineer.

[pnwmom]

26. Thanks. n/t

[Stuart G]

12. K and R thanks for posting nt

[Kingofalldems]

25. All these filthy bastards belong in jail.

As a side bonus, Steve Doocy will have a fit and make multiple faces on camera.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

27. Hmmm. confusing. this implies that the whole thing indeed could have

been a test. Since Christie mentioned he thought they didn't deserve enough lanes.

But....Christie thought FT Lee only deserved one lane. If that is true - why would he sanction a test
that would most certainly prove him wrong - or show the traffic jam that would ensue ? He wouldn't.

[ryan_cats]

29. Talk about dumb.

Talk about dumb, don't these guys remember how the Nazi's documentation of everything came back to haunt them and that was over 60 years ago? Now it's easier than ever to pull up all the documentation surrounding them. This makes me think they never thought they would get caught or they wouldn't have put this sort of thing to paper. Christie's administration is looking like Nixon's, great flag bearer for the gop.

I hope someone has their backup tapes to their mail server before they try to sanitize it if they haven't already. Maybe that's why these documents are trickling out, to cover up really incriminating documents that they deleted. I'm pretty sure the mail server's log file depending on its tracking level should show deletions and the dates they happened. I'd like to see them for the day before this broke and after.

This guy was actually a presidential contender??? They are scraping the bottom, Jeb's up next.

[Tarheel_Dem]

30. Anyone who was involved in this should be banned from public office for an eternity. nt

[sabrina 1]

31. 'Our PD ......... implemented diversions that further congested the borough'!

Preceded by 'Fort Lee is not happy'. All that needs is 'Mission Accomplished'.

People definitely need to be prosecuted over this. It is shameful that SO MANY 'public servants' would set out to HARM the public for a petty pay back against someone who was not even a member of Christie's party but had every right, and in fact an obligation to support his own Party's candidate.

I wonder how much more of this is going on. We KNOW that Democrats were targeted by the US Attorneys, or at least by those who caved to the Bush admins demands, yet nothing was every done about that. And I have little faith that anything will be done about this either.

[libdem4life]

34. Rachel's show talked about the $1 billion dollar development right at the bridge

that was still in funding status...and the final funding came in Monday after the lane closures. Threatening the lanes would decrease the value of the development...seems to be just another fraudulent element to the debacle.

I'd bet odds he'll be impeached ultimately. He's just pissed too many people off, bullied too many and is lying out his ears. Tomorrow he gives his State of the State speech. Will be interesting.

[joshcryer]

35. It affected thousands and only 10 people called in?

This is why the scum can get away with shit like this.