By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
As reported first here earlier today, Save Jerseyans, a bipartisan team comprised of state Senators Ron Rice (D-Essex) and Sam Thompson (R-Middlesex) are determined to get to the bottom of #WatershedGate and Cory Booker’s role in it.
We have a few more details after this morning’s press conference.
For starters, the pair authored a joint letter to the Bridgegate SCI requesting a formal inquiry into the sordid affair (click here)…
“Senator Rice and I are urging this committee to start this investigation on behalf of taxpayers all across New Jersey who give $100 million a year in state tax dollars as well as federal funds to the state’s largest city,” Thompson told the media. “The City of Newark has a storied history of government issues and state Comptroller reports from December and this month raise deeply troubling concerns for all New Jerseyans who are now represented in the U.S. Senate by the city’s former mayor. Such abuses have no place in any government and beg many questions as to what other abuses of power and tax dollars or cover-ups were done under Newark’s former mayor Booker and council.”
“It’s sickening to continue to read about this type of waste and taxpayer abuse in Newark, after I’ve personally been calling for full-out audits and investigations for years into not just the City’s administration, but also ancillary entities that it has created and given millions of public dollars,” Rice added. “The Comptroller’s Office has done a tremendous job shining a light onto some of Newark’s problems, but we can’t rely on the occasional investigation by that office to identify all issues, fix the problem or recoup tax dollars. Mayor Booker was running around the country tweeting and showing up to press conferences to kiss babies, while either ignoring or facilitating the fraud and waste occurring under his administration.”
The pair don’t have much in common from an ideological perspective but they do share a long-standing concern pertaining to how the Booker Administration managed the city’s finances along with the substantial amount of state aid received from taxpayers outside of the city.
“For the next two years, the Select Committee is empowered with subpoena power to investigate any government abuse of power and cover-up,” Thompson concluded. “Senator Rice and I will work tirelessly until this taxpayer-funded Committee is used to its full potential. The Committee chairs and Senate and Assembly leaders must be pressed until this happens.
“The people deserve answers to questions such as — what other egregious abuses Cory Booker allowed, how they all happened, what he knew and when — in order for us to recoup stolen and wasted tax dollars and protect them with legislative reforms to prevent it from happening again anywhere in New Jersey.”
Of course “mismanagement” and “Newark” have gone together like peanut butter and jelly for some time. The only question coming out of today’s presser is whether this unlikely senatorial duo can get the Bridgegate SCI to do something that’s actually worth our money.
The Mainstream Media has thus far slow-rolled what appears to be a MAJOR political scandal involving millions of misallocated dollars. Here’s their chance to join the SCI and also prove that they’re not hopelessly (and shamefully) in the tank for THEIR team’s presidential prospect, Mr. Twitter.
My suggestion would be to accuse him of closing a few lanes of traffic ,and the investigation will follow