Sweeney slams Christie on Hurricane Sandy N.J. aftermath PERTH AMBOY — As Gov. Chris Christie holds a full day of events around the state to mark the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy — a storm that highlighted his leadership and boosted his popularity — state Senate President Stephen Sweeney came to a storm-ravaged city to give a counter-narrative.
“I would much rather be standing at a podium congratulating the administration, and I have in the past when they’ve done well. But we’re going to call them out when they haven’t,” Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said inside Perth Amboy City Hall, where he stood with Perth Amboy Mayor Wilda Diaz, local officials and advocates for minorities and the poor.
This Raritan Bay city, severely damaged by the storm, was where Sweeney in February kicked off his “Sandy Bill of Rights” tour to promote legislation that would have given a ‘plain language’ explanation of how victims are eligible for Sandy recovery programs, given victims a “right to know” where their applications stood, and, among other things, why they were rejected or put on a waiting list.
Now Sweeney was here to decry Christie’s conditional veto of the bill in May, and Senate Republicans’ refusal to override him.
“It’s two years after, and the same problems exist,” Sweeney said, adding that his bill would have created “a much more transparent process.”
Adam Gordon, a staff attorney at the affordable housing group Fair Share Housing Center, said that of the $1.1 billion awarded to New Jersey in Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation (RREM) funds, just $220 million has made it to homeowners.
Gordon said 8,000 people who applied for the funds to repair their damaged homes haven’t received it.
According to Gordon, a small fraction of a pot of money meant to incentivize landlords to provide affordable rental housing had been given out.
“That’s supposed to be short-term help,” Gordon said.
And Gordon said only $10 million of $70 million for the Landlord Rental Repair Program had been allocated
“This is a disturbing pattern we’ve seen where renters who are overwhelmingly low-income… have constantly been getting fewer resources and less attention,” Gordon said,
Sweeney went on to bash the Christie administration for delaying and complying with the Legislature’s intent when it passed a bill, signed by Christie, to have “integrity monitors” watch over the recovery effort. Sweeney said those reports have not been detailed enough, and that that the full reports from the firm Cohn Reznick, which was hired by the Department of Community Affairs as a monitor, have not been released.
“I don’t know that anyone when that legislation when that was passed would think we’d have a secret file of integrity monitor reports that would never see the light of day,” Sweeney said. “The reports that have been offered are a whitewash. We don’t get the information – we get the summary. A lot of times you want to read the book, not the crib notes.”
Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said "we have fully complied with the law that Sweeney himself authored" and stressed the Cohn Reznick's report is separate from the type of reports outlined in that law.
While touring a recovery site in Toms River, Christie responded to Sweeney's charges, saying he's "finding a reason to be critical and to be partisan."
"That’s unfortunate. And if he had suggestions about how to make the RREM program better, he’s had two years to give me suggestions," Christie said. "We meet all the time. I haven’t heard one suggestion from him about how to make it better. So, if he wants to give me one, I’m more than happy to always receive it from the senator.
There was a political angle to the event. As Christie considers a run for president in 2016, Sweeney is considered a likely candidate for governor in 2017. His “Sandy Bill of Rights” tour, along with several other statewide tours he’s embarked on to promote his legislative initiatives, are seen in some circles as laying the groundwork for a gubernatorial run.
But Sweeney said this is just about the state’s response, not partisan politics.
“The buck stops at the desk of the governor… this is the state’s failure, not the federal government’s failure,” Sweeney said. “The money is here. We can’t get the money in the hands of the people who need it.”
NJ Advance Media staff writer MaryAnn Spotocontributed to this report.
Matt Friedman may be reached at mfriedman@njadva |
