How the heck do you get to change a vote from 2012? Waiting for indictments!! Port Authority subcommittee to review NJ Transit lease March 19, 2014, 10:24 AM BY ABBOTT KOLOFF STAFF WRITER The Record A Port Authority subcommittee is scheduled to meet today to examine a $1-a-year lease approved two years ago when the agency’s chairman was recorded as voting in favor of the deal, which benefitted benefited NJ Transit, a client of his law firm. The chairman, David Samson, told the agency last month - after tThe Record reported his vote as being listed in minutes - that he meant to recuse himself. Agency sources have said another vote will be taken on the matter. The agency’s Committee on Operations is scheduled to meet at 9:30 a.m. to review the lease agreement on a North Bergen park-and-ride lot. NJ Transit had been paying $900,000 a year for the lot before the new lease was approved at a Feb. 9, 2012, Port Authority board meeting. At the time, NJ Transit was paying Samson’s law firm, Wolff & Samson, up to $1.5 million for legal advice on an initiative to maximize profits on its parking lots. The full board is not expected to vote on the lease today, agency staff said, because it was not listed on its agenda for the regular meeting to be held at 1:30 p.m. The agenda was posted on the agency’s website Tuesday afternoon. According to the agenda, the agency’s chief of real estate and development, Michael Francois, is scheduled to address the subcommittee at its morning meeting. The subcommittee, after conducting a review of the lease, is expected to move it to the full board for a vote at a future meeting. Meanwhile, the Port Authority has already taken action to change the record regarding the 2012 vote. Minutes from last month’s board meeting say that the action taken on the lease “has been corrected to reflect a recusal by Chairman Samson.” A notation adds that the recusal was not recorded because of a “clerical inadvertence.” However, the Feb. 9, 2012, minutes posted on the agency’s website still show Samson voting on the matter, which was approved 6-0. Simply removing Samson’s vote from the total would mean the board didn’t have a quorum when it approved the lease. Port Authority staff initially said the recusal retroactively triggered a 5-0 vote by the Committee on Operations - which is considered to be meeting at the same time as the full board during regular meetings, according to minutes, and is authorized to take action when the board doesn’t have a quorum. Sources later said a new vote would be taken because of the controversy surrounding the original vote. An agency spokesman said on Tuesday that he was unable to explain a passage in last month’s minutes that say THE PASSAGE, NOT THE MINUTES says the Feb. 9, 2012, vote “moves to the Minutes of the Special Meeting of the Committee on Operations of that date.” Committee minutes from that date, which are posted on the agency’s website, have not been changed to mention the NJ Transit lease.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 05:45:27 +0000
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