TRENTON — Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski Thursday filed an Open Public Records Act request for documents related to Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to kill state’s funding of the ARC tunnel. “We need to know how he came to this decision and whether, as we’ve seen in other instances, the governor twisted the facts to meet his own...
Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniekski (D-Middlesex) has filed a request to see the paperwork that led to Gov. Chris Christie's decision to kill the Hudson River rail tunnel project.TRENTON — Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski Thursday filed an Open Public Records Act request for documents related to Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to kill state’s funding of the ARC tunnel.
“We need to know how he came to this decision and whether, as we’ve seen in other instances, the governor twisted the facts to meet his own ideology rather than what’s best for New Jersey,” said Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), who put the request into the governor’s office, Department of Transportation and New Jersey Transit.
Wisniewski, who also chairs the state Democratic Party, scheduled an Assembly Transportation Committee hearing for Thursday on Christie’s decision, which he said was “one of the worst a governor has ever made.”
“Yet the only information we have describing how he came to it is a 3-page memo by his hand-picked committee,” said Wisniewski, referring to the ARC Executive Steering Committee that Christie appointed.
Christie on Thursday cited ballooning costs to call off the project, saying the project’s currently budgeted $8.7 billion could reach as high as $14 billion. The state’s share of the funding was $3 billion, while the rest was to be paid by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the federal government. But Christie said New Jersey would be forced to pay for any cost overruns.
Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said the decision also took into account estimates from the Federal Transit Administration.
“This is an analysis from federal and state officials that indicate that this process comes along with cost overruns,” he said. “The basis for him trying to undercut what our projections are is empty.”
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