NEW YORK -- Anthony Coscia is expected to be renamed chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey tomorrow, providing a measure of continuity to the agency's efforts to rebuild the World Trade Center site, replace the Goethals Bridge and construct a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River. "That is our expectation," Stephen Sigmond,...
Anthony Coscia is expected to be renamed chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at the agency's annual reorganization meeting on Tuesday.
NEW YORK -- Anthony Coscia is expected to be renamed chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey tomorrow, providing a measure of continuity to the agency's efforts to rebuild the World Trade Center site, replace the Goethals Bridge and construct a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
"That is our expectation," Stephen Sigmond, a Port Authority spokesman, said of Coscia's re-appointment.
The chairman is officially elected each year from among members of the Port Authority's 12-member board of commissioners, who are scheduled to meet at the agency's Manhattan headquarters Tuesday afternoon. But under a power-sharing arrangement with New York State, the chairman is selected by the governor of New Jersey, while the executive director of the agency is a New Yorker.
Gov. Chris Christie's office did not return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment.
If he is re-elected chairman, Coscia will be serving under his fourth New Jersey governor, including his first Republican. He was originally appointed by Gov. Jim McGreevey in 2003 to fill the remaining two years of an unexpired six-year term. Then in 2005, Coscia was reappointed by McGreevey's successor, Acting Gov. Richard Codey, this time to a full 6-year term, which expires next year.
Coscia, a partner in the law firm of Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, has been praised as a pragmatic leader able to successfully navigate the bi-partisan and bi-state cross currents of the vast agency, which has a $6.34 billion budget and just under 7,000 employees, including police. Projects under his watch include modernization of the PATH system, teh purchase of Stewart Airport in upstate New York, the emotionally charged, politically fraught reconstruction of the Trade Center site, an $11 billion project spread several years.
Coscia led the development of a 10-year, $29.5 billion capital plan for the agency, only to scale back the plan by $5 billion due to declines in tolls and other revenues blamed on the recession.
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