Bloomberg and Pataki to Consider Port Authority Offer for WTC Memorial
The Daily News reports that Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki find “attractive” the Port Authority’s offer to quarterback the $800 million WTC Memorial.
The News headline “Mayor, gov back PA to helm 9/11 memorial” was stronger that what was actually said.
The text noted:
Bloomberg noted the giant agency has “a long history of building, and I think it is certainly something that we should take a look at, absolutely.”
Hours later, Pataki said in a statement, “If the Port Authority can offer the ability to guarantee costs and provide greater efficiency . . . we think this proposal merits serious consideration.”
Pataki added that the WTC Memorial Foundation is the “client, overseer and keeper” of the memorial design.
However the Newsday headline was “Pataki says he will maintain leading role at ground zero” The headline was also misleading given the text:
But in an interview with The Associated Press, Pataki said that his involvement in rebuilding would not change.
“The mayor and I are making a very clear statement that we are going to personally continue to be deeply involved and that’s the way it should be,” he said. “I couldn’t be any more involved.”
Of course the question always is whether Pataki’s involvement has helped or hurt Ground Zero and how bad his judgement is.
In any event it would appear that Pataki is once again waffling and the end result is a muddled Ground Zero plan.
Pataki initially urged creation of the LMDC to oversee the construction and then proceeded to override its first major the decision by forcing them to choose the ill-fated Daniel Libeskind plan for Ground Zero which called for the memorial to be buried (and thus why will have a hole for a memorial).
All the more ironic because the Port Authority is the property owner.