On Sandy, Christie gets a "D": Two years after Hurricane Sandy, the vast majority of homeowners who have sought help have not received it. New Jersey has done better than New York City, but lagged behind New York State.The Christie administration has been inexcusably secretive, and has made some truly dumb mistakes, like parking trains in a flood zone. Politics intruded when dispersing money. Climate change was treated as an afterthought.
But the governor has had his moments. He rallied morale, much as Mayor Rudy Giuliani did in New York after the September 11 attacks. He fought his own party with abandon on behalf of the state. And who can forget the fleece and the hug?
So what’s his overall grade? We give him a "D," and below, we break it down by category, some more weighty than others:
NJ TRANSIT: F. Parking trains in a low-lying area, where they were predictably flooded, caused $120 million in damage. The buck stops at Christie's desk.
FEDERAL AID: A-plus. Christie's brightest moment was his willingness to put aside partisanship to fight for New Jersey and the federal aid Sandy victims desperately needed.
THE FLEECE: A-plus. On morale-boosting in the days right after the storm, Christie was at his best.
HELP FOR HOMEOWNERS: C-minus, tops. Only about 20 percent of the relief money has actually been disbursed. The state's lead contractor was so incompetent it had to be fired. The firm, Hammerman and Gainer, Inc. (HGI), was accused of losing applications and deliberately giving storm victims the runaround. Its decisions were riddled with errors: when appealed, they were reversed in 79 percent of the cases.
RELIEF FOR RENTERS: D. Christie's officials wrongly shortchanged the poorest residents in their initial relief plan, until the feds demanded millions more be shifted to renters and rebuilding public housing. The state also initially failed to provide a plan for Spanish-speakers. It did a good job getting short-term aid out to renters, but now that those dollars are running out, they have few options. Until recently, N.J. did not prioritize rebuilding housing in the hardest-hit areas.
TRANSPARENCY: F. Christie refused to send his top Sandy officials to legislative hearings until well after his re-election. When they did finally address lawmakers and reporters, they neglected to mention that they'd fired their lead contractor on rebuilding without a word to the public. It was only thanks to a public records request from Fair Share Housing that we ultimately learned the contractor had been rejecting eligible Sandy victims. The state apparently had no plan to fix this. Christie could have stepped in for Sandy victims, but didn't. He gutted the bipartisan "Sandy Bill of Rights," which would have entitled them to clear explanations of what they're eligible for and where they stand on the waiting list. He is also trying to circumvent a law that requires close oversight of Sandy relief money. His officials have refused to disclose the bulk of their spending on Sandy contractors, including HGI, in any detail. Instead, they set up a system -- coordinated by a firm that employs Christie's brother, Todd -- to ensure that integrity monitor reports are not released to the legislature, but simply summarized.
POLITICAL STINK: F. We still don't know for sure whether Sandy aid was used as leverage to force Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's approval of a real estate project favored by the governor, as she claims. But we do know that Christie steered Sandy funds to a project in Belleville, a town that wasn't particularly hard-hit, and its Democratic mayor promptly endorsed him. The administration also shamelessly used Sandy relief money for TV ads starring Christie.
RESILIENCY: C-minus. Under Christie's watch, our standards for rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy are a foot lower than those of neighboring states, and we are still building up along our shoreline. We are setting ourselves up for another disaster. It's just the latest example of his shameful record on climate change. He withdrew our state from a regional treaty on global warming and a lawsuit seeking tougher regulations on coal plants in other states, and raided our clean energy fund of about $1 billion to plug budget holes. On the plus side, Christie is buying properties in high-risk zones, though the program is voluntary and haphazard.
Most New Jerseyans would give the governor a better overall grade than our “D.” Maybe they give him style points. But polls show that those hit hardest are the least satisfied: Two-thirds of storm victims are dissatisfied with the state's recovery effort. Based on this report card, they have good reason to be.
And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage U2
