"I could get used to this." (Esquire)
By the end of the month, Chris Ward, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will be out of a job. Some of his aides and allies—and even possibly the big man himself—think they have a good position lined up for The Man Who Saved Ground Zero: mayor of New York City.
“Mayor Bloomberg has changed the public perception of what it means to be mayor, and that is a good and a bad thing” one Ward aide involved in the recruitment efforts told The Politicker. “People think this is a job for someone outside of politics. Chris kind of fits that bill. He is a chief executive, and chief executive of a huge municipality. Do we want to revert to form after we’ve broken the mold?”
While most of the pressure has come from those in Mr. Ward’s orbit and a few outsiders (call them the Wardens!), the lumbering, loquacious life-long civil servant would not pass up Gracie Mansion if the opportunity presented itself. Over the past few months, since things started to go south at the Port Authority under deteriorating relations with Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mr. Ward has been saying in private that he would not mind running for political office, in particular mayor, according to a person present for some of those conversations.
So long as the political—and financial—support is there, there may well be a Chris Ward candidacy.
The Port Authority boss has frequently professed his love of public service, and he has said on numerous occasions that he would run the agency forever if he could, just like his hero Austin Tobin, the mini-Robert Moses who led the Port of New York Authority from 1942 to 1972, its golden age of public works construction. But Governor Cuomo has shown little interest in this arrangement.
Though he reappointed Mr. Ward in January, they have had limited contact. Mr. Ward tried to arrange a peaceful transition out of the job, as he had grown frustrated as a powerless lame duck, but the Cuomo administration was anxious about letting him go until it replaced Jay Walder, the head of the M.T.A., who is departing for Hong Kong over similar frustrations. Two weeks ago, The New York Times got wind of Mr. Ward’s plans to leave by the end of October.
He could handily get a job atop a consultancy or construction firm, making many times his already considerable $350,000 salary. He would be satisfied by such work, but would he be fulfilled? “Chris is a big believer in public service and the transformative nature of government,” the aide said. “He wants to help, he wants to make things better. If you’re that guy, what better job? He doesn’t want to be President Ward, he doesn’t want to be Senator Ward. But Mayor Ward? You’ve got a real budget and a real profile without all the bullshit.”
Mr. Ward, for his part, declined to comment for this article.
The Wardens believe that his track record at the Port Authority, particularly his experience righting a listless World Trade Center redevelopment, gives him the management experience and exposure to claim the mantel of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He may not be a household name, but if he can successfully link himself with the project, which almost gave a certain mayor White House aspirations, his supporters believe he can portray himself as a technocrat with enough political know-how to navigate both the public and private sectors.
“Chris took over probably the best known construction project in the world when it was going nowhere, when it was stuck in litigation and political turmoil and was in fact a black eye to the city and the state,” said a former high-ranking mayoral official who supports the idea of a Ward administration. “Within a year, he turned it around. He’s the reason the tallest office building in the Western hemisphere is halfway complete, he’s the reason the relationship with Larry Silverstein, and by extension the business community, has been restored. He’s the reason why on 9/11, the city, the nation and the world were able to pay there respects at a functioning memorial.”
“The World Trade Center is like a miniature New York,” the Ward aide said. “What more experience do you need?”
How about all he has done to update and improve the airports, ports, buses and bridges controlled by the Port Authority? He has promoted a public-private partnership to replace the Goethals Bridge, and sought plans to revamp not only the reviled Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street but also the one at the foot of the George Washington Bridge. In addition, he led a dredging campaign in the harbor, to deepen it for the new super ships that will soon traverse a rebuilt Panama Canal. He has brought new business and new terminals to the busy airports, and even suggested LaGuardia should be torn down—a hallmark of his bullish yet convivial manner. The comment was at once a joke and dead serious.
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So the “highway” Chris Ward may take goes to City hall” should be an interesting journey.
Before there was the “Oracle at Delphi” there was Count Vampire J. Machiavelli
VJ Machiavelli
Power to the People who “VOTE”
I would definitely vote for Ward over the current cast of clowns.
How is it possible that this review of Chris Ward’s career doesn’t mention his stint as DEP Commissioner and the responsibility he holds for the $3 billion scam of a water filtration plant he had built in the Bronx? The unwanted industrial plant has destroyed public parkland, opened the door for fraud and corruption as the contractors on the job have been indicted and fined by the justice department, is still costing taxpayers a fortune, and has turned what was a peaceful section of the Bronx into a construction zone. Furthermore, the lies he told about jobs and economic development and the back room deals he cut in order to get this monstrosity passed by the city council are legendary. Then he neatly skirted all the city’s conflict of interest laws and a year later got himself a job as head of the GCA, the organization that benefitted most from this boondoggle. Mayor? Ha! The man belongs in jail.
I agree. This article is a complete injustice. Years after the disaster in the Bronx he has spent all of the Port Authority’s money on the World Trade Center. At last count that project is more than $2 billion over budget (notice a pattern?). Not to mention his back room deals were with real estate developers. The only people who are calling for Ward as mayor are those same developers and his lackey co-conspirators who help him screw over the public.
Absurd that the Observer would ignore Ward’s role in one of the biggest boondoggles in NYC history, the water filtration fiasco in the Bronx. Get out of your Manhattan-centric myopia. Ward promised us Bronxites the moon in exchange for his fraud laden filtration plant, which destroyed our parkland. Next to none of the community benefits he promised have been realized. But this divinity school grad is given a free pass. Hah — he may have studied about ethical conduct in divinity school — but Ward has never let it get in the way of getting what he wants. Icing on your arrogant myopia is that you quote this hack Sheinkopf. Sheinkopf, a major financial contributor to none other than Pedro Espada, Jr. — another piece of crap who stole from the people he pretended to serve.
And he’ll leave the PA before the truth about WTC construction contracting rises to the surface….good timing!
And he’ll leave the PA before the truth about WTC construction contracting rises to the surface….good timing!
While at DEP, Chris Ward pushed through the Croton filtration plant, which has been, thus far, triple what he claimed it would cost. He kept the WTC plant “within budget” by tripling the declared budget, and now will leave the Port Authority before the buildings are finished and the public gets to see that we can’t build office space at $1000 a sq ft and expect to cover our costs. A disaster like this we don’t need as mayor.