Christie and Cuomo Deliver Tag-Team Veto to Port Authority Reform Drive

Batman vs. Penguin mayoral election debate
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Just before midnight on a holiday Saturday, the political patronage machine known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) received, figuratively speaking, two governors' pardon. The issue was the reform of the bistate agency in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal. Curiously, the Republican Chris Christie and Democratic Andrew Cuomo, both of whom have presidential ambitions, found common ground in their respective vetoes. They cited their alternative reform plans, which critics asserted would water down the effort to shine light on the PA's often opaque award and management of lucrative contracts.

According to The New York Times' report on the vetoes, the far stronger reforms had received unanimous approval votes from each state's respective legislatures. Due to the arcane nature of the PA's charter, change requires approval from both states' governors and legislatures. Unanimously positive votes are extremely rare. However, the shadow vote -- the fixers and deep pockets who appear on the PA's board of directors and executive positions -- was most likely unanimously negative.

Recently, I've been reading Italian crime fiction. The works often offer a window into the corruption that characterizes the Italian political process. Unlike Italians, Americans largely remain in denial of its embrace of a wink-and-nod society. While "networking" has become a watchword in American life, the implications of that concept, especially in relation to back-door deals and opaque transactions, has largely gone unexplored. The Port Authority reform episode demonstrates that "networked" crony corruption remains very alive and well, and transcends left-wing or right-wing rhetoric.

NY Attorney General Probes Sale of Rights to "World Trade Center" Name for Ten Dollars

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For those of you who don't live in the metropolitan New York area, let me provide some brief backstory on a curious bi-state governmental creature known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PA). Just about everyone in the region calls the entity the "Port Authority." It runs the airports, bus terminals,  Hudson River crossings, PATH train system, and docks in New York, Newark, and Elizabeth. The PA makes more money than God; its bond ratings are characteristically the highest available in the business.

The Port Authority is also a profoundly political entity, with a board typically consisting of regional, deep pocketed power brokers. There are few policy accidents among these well-connected board members, the PA's well-paid, entrenched bureaucracy, and the political parties that thrive on Port Authority business.

Guy Tozzoli
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According to an Associated Press story picked up by Fox News, the PA had something of a fire sale in 1986 on the right to the name "World Trade Center." (The original article on this subject appeared some months ago in the northern New Jersey newspaper The Record.) The Port Authority sold the name for ten American dollars. (The story did not state whether the transaction was all cash, check, or billed to the buyer on 30-day payment terms.)

The buyer, though, wasn't just anyone off the street. That would, to understate the case, not be the Port Authority way. The purchaser was a nonprofit called "The World Trade Centers Organization (WCTA)."  The nonprofit's capo was one Guy Tozzoli, who happened to be a Port Authority executive who was leaving the PA. Of course, the deal was a license to print money. Just how much is now the subject of a nationwide investigation by New York State's attorney general.

One intriguing aspect of l'affaire Tozzoli is its timing. Mr. Tozzoli died in February, 2013.