At this morning’s virtual meeting of the bistate Gateway Development Commission, the agency will approve agreements for a $6.88 billion grant from the Federal Transit Administration and for $4 billion in loans from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Along with another $5 billion in money from Congress, that’s the $16 billion for the new Gateway rail tunnel under the Hudson.
The $16 billion in taxpayer funds needs the utmost transparency, but GDC is keeping stuff hidden. In documents we have requested that they have filed with the FTA, GDC has wrongly redacted everything related to Standard Cost Categories, which shows how much the various elements are expected to be.
They also blacked out the same SCC data from the FTA grant contract posted on the GDC website (under the GDC’s own bylaws that material was supposed to be published “no later than 72 hours before such meeting” but we had to urge them to hurry up when the clock ticked under 24 hours).
We still managed to get the full SCC info and will share it with anyone who asks us for it.
By our read of the state law, GDC can’t get a federal cent until the commission’s five officers are in place: CEO, CFO, general counsel, chief ethics and compliance officer, and inspector general.
CEO Kris Kolluri (who is leaving soon) and CFO Pat McCoy are the only two of the five. There is a non-Gateway employee filling in as both acting general counsel and acting chief ethics and compliance officer. And there is no IG, not even an acting one.
Kolluri’s replacement and the three other new officers must make everything public.