Last night, Rachel Maddow signed off with a very tantalizing tease--Steve Kornacki had a major scoop related to the scandals surrounding Chris Christie. That may have come on this morning's edition of Up with Steve Kornacki. Over the last week, Kornacki discovered that even though a law was passed last spring to provide for independent monitoring of Sandy relief projects, implementation of that law has proceeded at a snail's pace. In fact, the program is just now being implemented--a full 10 months after Christie signed the bill into law. Apparently that's how the now-infamous Belleville senior center was built with Sandy money even though Belleville barely got scratched by the storm.
Watch the full piece here:
The law, the Integrity Monitor Act, provided that every Sandy project of over $5 million was to have an independent monitor who would review their progress. However, Kornacki points out that a month after Christie signed this bill into law, he vetoed a law that would have set up a website to track the contracts, saying it would have been redundant to efforts already underway. The significance? Christie apparently didn't comply with the law he'd just signed--the legislature didn't get any of the quarterly reports they were supposed to receive under the law. He was unable to find any information on whether any monitors were in place before January. He also revealed that the biggest Sandy contract was quietly spiked in December--with no explanation provided to the legislature.
Kornacki said that it took a lot of digging to find any information about the Belleville project. He had to go back to the story in the (Newark) Star-Ledger announcing the center's opening and Google the name. He ultimately discovered that it was originally approved in 2011--for a paltry $500,000 of state money, not the $6.8 million it ultimately cost. The only even tangential reference to Sandy comes in a press release announcing the project from Essex County executive Joe DiVicenzo, in which it's claimed that since Essex County was one of the nine counties most affected by Sandy, the project "may assist senior citizens affected by the storm." Had that website Christie vetoed been in place, chances are someone would have red-flagged the Belleville project before now.
Congressman Frank Pallone was aghast when he learned about this. On the show, he said, "It's just incredible to think they ignored the law, didn't do anything."
Kornacki also reveals something rather interesting, to say the least. Ernst & Young was contracted as a monitoring firm, and the state treasurer gave it a very significant role in monitoring projects. Additionally, Todd Christie, the governor's brother, worked for Ernst & Young as a director for its Northeast practices market.
1:08 PM PT: Kornacki tweets that the Star-Ledger has gotten its hands on this story.
For those of you keeping score, this is the second shot that New Jersey's biggest paper has fired across Christie's bow in 48 hours. If you'll remember, this morning's paper called for Christie to either resign or be impeached if David Wildstein is telling the truth.
