Gov Christie and Mayor Dawn Zimmer tour Hoboken after Huricane Sandy
Gov. Chris Christie and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer in this post-Sandy file photo. Zimmer accused top members of the Christie administration of pressuring her to approve a development deal.
(John Munson/The Star-Ledger)
By David Giambusso and Chris Baxter
The Star-Ledger
TRENTON — The Democratic mayor of Hoboken launched a new broadside attack on Gov. Chris Christie today, claiming top administration officials starved the waterlogged city of Hurricane Sandy relief money because she refused to expedite a development project linked to a powerful Christie ally.
Armed with entries from her personal journal, the mayor, Dawn Zimmer, who has long been a supporter of the embattled governor, went on national television and accused Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and Richard Constable, a member of Christie's cabinet, of attempting to strong-arm her last year.
"She pulls me aside with no one else and says that I need to move forward with the Rockefeller project," Zimmer wrote in an entry, referring to Guadagno. "It’s very important to the governor. The word is that you are against it and you need to move forward or we are not going to be able to help you. I know it’s not right. These things should not be connected. But they are, she says. ‘If you tell anyone I said it, I will deny it.’"
Zimmer later told The Star-Ledger that breaking her silence was "probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done."
"I did feel like I had an ethical obligation to come forward," she said.
The governor’s office dismissed the charges, saying in a statement that Christie "has been helping Hoboken get the help they need after Sandy, with the city already having been approved for nearly $70 million dollars in federal aid and it targeted to get even more."
"It’s very clear partisan politics are at play here as Democratic mayors with a political ax to grind come out of the woodwork and try to get their faces on television," Colin Reed, a spokesman for the governor, said in a statement, noting Zimmer’s past praise for the governor.
Still, the timing could not have been worse for Christie, who tried to shake the unfolding George Washington Bridge scandal by returning to the national political stage to hobnob with wealthy donors at a Florida country club and raise money for fellow GOP Gov. Rick Scott.
Staff writers Matt Friedman, Sal Rizzo, Stephen Stirling and Susan K. Livio contributed to this report.
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