Chris Christie Will Reimburse NJ For State Chopper Use

Governor Christie at the baseball game (Patch.com)

Well, would you look at that: After his spokesman said that taking a state helicopter to his son's baseball game was appropriate, NJ Governor Chris Christie has decided to reimburse the state. In fact, Christie is going to reimburse the beleaguered Garden State for all the personal trips he's made with the chopper. Good thing his wife has a high-paying job—and we bet he saved up a little something when he was a lobbyist.

NJ.com reports, "Spokeswoman Maria Comella says Christie has paid $2,251 to the state to cover the cost of all trips," which include two trips to see one of his son's ball games. "Comella also says the state GOP has paid $919 to cover the cost of Christie's trip Tuesday when used the helicopter to fly 75 miles from a game in Montvale to Princeton to take meeting with a group of top GOP campaign contributors from Iowa."

Yesterday, the NJ State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes claimed that Christie's trips incurred "no additional cost to taxpayers or the State Police budget... It is important to understand that State Police helicopters fly daily homeland security missions, and use flight time for training purposes, more so lately as we acclimate our pilots to the new aircraft. These are flight hours that would be logged in any event." But it's better to have this issue put to bed before 2012, right?

A NJ Assembly member said she would hold hearings into the chopper use, but it's unclear if that's still on the table.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on June 2, 2011 3:55 PM

Comments [rss]

randomtransplant

Soo....500 million for schools as per the justices orders, 500 million pissed away because Christie couldn't file for Race to the Top by the deadline, 500 million or so & climbing because of ARC....Christie saw how they prosecuted Paterson for those Yankee tickets even after he left office and realized it was cheaper just to cut a check. He's no more responsible than when he stepped in that copter.

JackBrat

Geez- Can't NJ cut the Governor SOME slack here. . . I mean the guy is absolutely saving NJ's financial ass here- and doing a pretty good job of it. . . so he saves quite a bit of his personal time by taking the State's chopper to see his son play ball! I mean, it's not as though he took the chopper to pick-up his 'boyfriend' for a quick gambling tryst in Atlantic City!!!
BTW- does the Governor get paid O/T when he's working late at the State House?!?!? Huh?!?!? Get real New Jersey-ites!!

unretrofiedforu

O wow!

What's next - gonna pay NJ back for all the meals he ate as well? Private workers do not get free lunch and I'm sure he's eaten more than his share.

whatidsay

What do you mean no additional cost? How must extra fuel was wasted carrying his fat ass around?

souper_crackers

I don't really know where he stands on the environment politically, but I can see what he thinks of it personally.

randomtransplant

He's about as green as the Delaware river in January. Which is to say shit brown.

He opened up a corner of the Pine Barrens to development, closed state
parks, increased NJ Transit rider costs by 25% a month, killed the
largest public transportation project in the East Coast, refused to add
even a penny a gallon to the gas tax, killed Cap and Trade, tried
unsuccessfully to de-fund the instillation of photo-electric panels
along the power lines, tried to kill school buses for students....

At least his predecessors could argue the realities of an industrial economy. Christi's messes are purely ideological.

whoknewit

When does he reimburse the Federal $'s for the ARC tunnel?

T

fat conservative fuck. die.

TimSPC

I plan on actively trying to remove him from office, but this type of talk is inappropriate.

virgilstarkwell

i guess that's better than not reimbursing the money - and it'll be enough for the conservative media to be able to shower praise upon him for 'taking accountability' - but the larger issue is a lack of judgement in the first place.