Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Quite the bombshell this morning, and it goes off next to the Mayor

The Jersey City Daily posted a link on Twitter that helps show a mayor obsessed with fighting the Port Authority. Former Jersey City Police Chief Robert Cowan noted in court documents that though he had only recently assumed command, he said in Superior court documents that a top Fulop staffer told him exactly how they were going to try and "to obtain leverage against the Port Authority," and in doing so Cowan said, he saw illegal actions taking place:

Cowan's complaint in Hudson County Superior Court describes a meeting on Nov. 4, 2013, in which the mayor's chief of staff "issued an unlawful order to Cowan, instructing Cowan to establish a traffic stop (looking for seat belt violations) with the intent of shutting down traffic outside of the Holland Tunnel."

In fact Cowan said it wasn't just seat belts at the Holland Tunnel that had the mayor focused like a laser on the PA (Johnny's words), no, it gets much more vindictive, read on citizen:

Fulop's office nevertheless called Cowan in a week later to discuss plans for a traffic stop meant to check trucks coming out of the Port Jersey Global Container Terminal, according to the complaint.

When Cowan balked again, Fulop's allegedly responded with, "this is not a negotiation, I am telling you to do this."

Cowan says the truck stops at the terminal occurred on Nov. 18 and Nov. 18 but that he shut the traffic stop down because he perceived that the back-up it caused was "hazardous and a misuse of police resources."

An "angered" Fulop allegedly called for another stop to harass the Port Authority, but Cowan says he told the mayor "that his instructions were unlawful."

"Fulop became visibly angry and reminded Cowan: 'you serve at my pleasure' threatening that Fulop could remove Cowan as chief if he so desired," the complaint states.

So ladies and jellyspoons, Mr. Steve Fulop, Mayor of Jersey City and so obsessed with getting leverage over the Port Authority he's willing to make orders his police chief finds illegal on their face.

If this is true, and outside the city denying the overall lawsuit filed by Cowan, nobody in the Fulop administration has denied these comments, then we as a city have a problem. A egotistical "I'm never wrong problem" in our city. An "I'm willing to do whatever I want laws be damned" problem. Sure the Port Authority are assholes. Sure they rip us off daily. But we'd expect more from the mayor of Jersey City over this. Much more.

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