The brash Governor of New Jersey has not yet gotten his head above water concerning the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, as personnel from his administration seem to be dragging their feet in relation to the Federal Government’s attempt to investigate the matter.
In the wake of the ongoing fallout from this scandal the Govenor’s popularity is dropping, especially nationwide.
Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind Poll March 11, 2014
The pros and cons of how Americans view Chris Christie personally offer some avenues for redemption and some dark alleys of negativity. The avalanche of scandal seems to continue to fall around the New Jersey Governor with legal battles still obscuring the details of what has actually happened in relation to the George Washington Bridge and use of Hurricane Sandy recovery funds.
Two issues have cropped up in relation to the spending of Hurricane Sandy Relief funds by the State of New Jersey. One of these issues involves an investigation by a federal inspector general concerning the use of $25 million of relief funds to create a marketing campaign that was run in the middle of the New Jersey gubernatorial season. A group of public service television ads were used featuring Governor Christie and his family. These TV spots were designed to promote tourism in New Jersey diverting hurricane recovery funds. The promotional campaign was referred to as “Stronger Than the Storm” tourism ads. Further questions were raised when it was indicated that the New Jersey administration took a bid $2.2 million more expensive for ??the marketing campaign contract than was offered by a competing bidder.
The second element of this potential scandal surfaced when the housing advocacy group, Fair Share Housing Center, released a report titled, “The State of Sandy Recovery – Fixing What Went Wrong with New Jersey’s Sandy Programs to Build a Fair and Transparent Recovery for Everyone“.
The report indicated that over 38 percent of African Americans were rejected when applying for Resettlement Program grants and Latinos had a 20 percent rejection rate. The rejection rate for Caucasians was 14.5 percent.
The grants under this program would have provided funding up to $10,000 to homeowners that agreed to remain in the county of their residence, at the time Sandy hit, for a minimum of 3 years.
An unequal distribution of recovery funds was also evident in the center’s data concerning the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation program. This program provided certain New Jersey residents with up to $150,000 to repair or rebuild their homes damaged by the hurricane. This program had a rejection rate of around 25 percent for African-Americans, 18 percent for Latinos and 14 percent for Caucasians.
The New Jersey administration was forced to release documents relating to these programs because of a lawsuit brought by the Fair Share Housing Center.
Officials speaking on behalf of the Christie administration disagreed with the Fair Housing group claiming that the issue of race played no part in the distribution of funds.
Edited/Published by: SB
