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Originally Posted by rocknation
"Close ties" to Governor Soprano? That's an understatement -- the owner of Wolff & Samson, David Samson, also happens to be the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey! Which means that though the position pays no salary, a lovely little paycheck would have been waiting for him at W&S once the Hoboken development deal went through.
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I'm glad Mr. Samson is "too ethical" to collect paychecks from both the PA and his law firm's clients that do business with the PA. According to
The Rachel Maddow Show, here's a heartwarming story about a paycheck that Mr. Samson DID pick up:
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...(W)e introduced you to...a parking lot in northern New Jersey just across the river from New York City. The entity that operates that parking lot has been trying to...maximize its profits...(T)hey hired a top New Jersey law firm to help advise them...Wolff and Samson.
In 2010, they paid that firm somewhere in the neighborhood of $650,000...The next year, they gave...$1.5 million...Well, the Samson in Wolff Samson is...David Samson...(who) is also the chairman of...The Port Authority...(which) happens to own that piece of land where the parking lot sits....
In early 2012, Mr. Samson, in his official role as chairman of the Port Authority...voted that they should stop charging...$900,000 per year (in rent)...and start charging them one dollar per year...Do the math.
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Okay, I'll do the math -- the entity saves $899,999 a year, New Jersey loses $899,999 worth of tax revenue a year, and Wolff and Samson pockets at least two million dollars.
But before you start accusing Mr. Samson of unethical-ness below and beyond the call of duty, you'll be happy to know that he has seen the error of his ways and has sought to make amends:
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...The Port Authority`s general counsel...agreed to change the recorded board vote on the dollar a year lease deal...
David Samson was present at the vote that day. He voted yes, but now...says actually he never intended to vote...He would like to retroactively recuse himself from that vote, please, two years later.
In a letter...the general counsel told Mr. Samson, quote, "I have concluded that you intended to recuse on that matter, through clerical inadvertence, your recusal was not correctly noted..."
I'm not sure I've ever seen...a retroactive recusal, but in New Jersey, we`re all learning that anything is possible.
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So you see, it was just another of those satellites of misunderstanding that revolve around Planet Christie: Samson's vote was recorded correctly, but his declining to vote wasn't.
Voting for the rent reduction was the "wrong" thing to do -- setting it up at taxpayer expense for his personal gain was perfectly okay. And he has now turned his wrong into a right!
The next step, of course, is for Mr. Samson to "retroactively recuse" the money that "the entity" paid his law firm. But that might take a while, because the entity is New Jersey Transit -- who VERY recently lost THEIR chairman!