still on our panel heather hadley, rick mer can kt, ray lesniak and jamelle bouie of the daily beast. you once wrote for politicsmj.com. we can both put that out there. you are also an expert on new jersey politics and you know a lot about how the intersection between development issues and new jersey politics. first, can you explain a little bit just we put it in that piece there but the permanent closure of these traffic lanes in a project like this, what the effect would be on a project like this? i think it would be devastating. and i should say not only did i work for law edge, david wildstein, baroni was at my wedding. i know these people. i should put that out there. when you look at the map, the
he staked his reputation on, something he has called, quote, monumental in the rebirth of ft. lee. so while we ve talked a lot this week about how the traffic jams caused by the lane closures caused headaches for the mayor because of the traffic jams and delayed emergency responses and the stalled school buses, what we haven t talked about is what he asked baroni about in the e-mail he sent to him way back when this started going on. query: what do i do when our billion dollar redevelopment is put on line at the end of next year? the threat to permanently close, reduce those lanes would have been a threat to unravel what sokolich has as the crown jewel of his tenure as mayor. the career of the mayor of ft. lee was affected by the lane closures. there is still a lot we don t know like, for instance, was this part of a payback plan to
governor christie tried to cover up political motives and block the media from learning more about it. also, they give new insight into the wake of the resignations. the documents do not, we need to point, seem to show governor christie played a role. patrick foye was outraged. he used his authority to override the lane closures and wrote this on september 13th. i pray that no life has been lost or trip of a hospital or hospice-bound patient delayed. i will get to the bottom of this abusive decision which vial ated everything this agency stands for. this led to a fleur riff e-mails by officials. at one point, bill baroni replied saying he was, quote, on way to office to discuss and that there can be no public discourse on the controversy. baroni resigned in december. cnn s lex sandra field is
media from learning more about it. they give new insight into the wake of the controversy. the documents believe to not show governor christie played a role. he used this authority to overunited the lane closures and wrote this september 13th i pray that no life has been lost or trip of a hospital or hospice-bound patient delayed. i will get to the bottom of this abusive decision, however, which violates everything that this agency stands for. this led to i flurry of e-mails. bill barone applied to foye saying he was, quote, on his way to office to discuss and that there can be no public discord on the controversy.
it originated from the account of the port authority executive director who was appointed by new york governor andrew cuomo, the kwou mow appointee was expressing outraej at the way the lanes were closed calling it ill advised and abusive. also, there s another document that says the mayor of fort lee was telling people that he was being blamed for the problem with the bridge. he wrote that port authority police were blaming him. he wrote a letter complaining about it to a top official of the port authority, bill barone who has since resigned. he was drawing the conclusion that this was done to make him look bad. there were, he said, punitive overtones associated with it. that was on september 12th, don. but barone has been saying it s a traffic study. so my question is, is there anything that you ve come across that would help vindicate christie and his team. there are a lot of pages and we may not have been able to go