Christie Administration Quietly Fires Sandy Aid Contractor

Failure to Disclose Firing Amounts to Bad Faith and More Scandal and Coverup

A quick note on the firing of Christie Administration’s main contractor for distributing Sandy aid.

Readers can take the short cut and read today’s Star Ledger editorial.

First, we are not Christie scandal mongers – we’ve long been critical of the Christie Sandy preparation and recovery effort and were specifically disappointed in the failure of the NJ press corps to write the HGI story, which was broken by the Wall Street Journal (see: Did Christie Select Another Corporate Crony For Sandy Recovery?

Hammerman & Gainer Inc., or HGI, was chosen by state officials in May to administer two programs distributing $780 million in federal money to Sandy victims, including New Jersey’s biggest homeowner-relief initiative, the $600 million Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation Program. […]

The reconstruction program has received 12,254 applications, and 3,497 have been deemed eligible, the state records show. No grants have been awarded yet. Contractors are still collecting documentation from homeowners and conducting property inspections—a time-consuming process, state officials said.

But, we’re glad to see that the Star Ledger editorial board now realizes that they were wrong to blame [public sector] “bureaucrats” for the failures in distribution of Sandy aid money. The [private sector] contractor and the Gov.’s failed management were to blame. But they should apologize for that smear (see: Don’t Blame the Bureaucrats – Blame the Governor and the Media).

But we’re glad that the Ledger connected the issue to the Gov. arrogant defiance of legislative oversight and the role of Sandy Czar Ferzan in that process (see: Christie Junta Again Defies Legisaltive Oversight of Sandy Recovery)

So, we’d like to offer a few thoughts on why the Christie Administration chose to keep this contract termination quiet.

The failure to disclose the HGI termination was intentional. Reasons why:

1) It would highlight the Christie Administration’s gross incompetence, on the Gov.’s signature issue;

2) it would reinforce corruption themes now emerging in the various scandals, specifically, HGI was a a political donor to Gov. Christie and the Republican Governor’s Association. Like Ashbritt , there may also have been connections with Haley Barbour.

Already gravely wounded by multiple scandals, the Christie people knew that those facts would set off another round of media feeding frenzy, so tried to sweep it under the rug.

3) HGI got paid $10.5 million for their failure – that’s sure to outrage a LOT of people, especially those still waiting for Sandy money.

4) The HGI failures would shed light on the Christie Adminsitration’s failure to comply with new HUD rules, which mandate that NJ conduct “transparent and inclusive process” to develop Sandy recovery funding plans, including “science-based risk analysis” addressing sea level rise and other effects of climate change.

That failure jeopardizes receipt of full and timely federal funding, details, see: