The state asked for records, financial data and the files of all criminal investigations pertaining to New Jersey. The commission rejected the request.
Gov. Phil Murphy, here at Port Newark in December, has set a March 28 deadline for the state's withdrawal from the Waterfront Commission.Like a bad marriage breakup, New Jersey — which plans to walk out on its nearly 70-year relationship with New York over the watchdog agency that has long policed the region’s docks and piers on the waterfront — has begun working on dividing up the property.
The letter from Murphy sent to the commission on Feb. 9 was not unlike a list sent to a company being acquired in a hostile takeover, seeking a full accounting of everything from police activities to equipment, laptops, phones and vehicles. Neither the commission nor the governor’s office would respond to questions about the ongoing battle over the agency, which lost a legal battle for its survival that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.Meanwhile, the New Jersey State Police has already become a presence in the port areas in New Jersey.
The commission was created in 1953 in response to the deep-rooted corruption then prevalent on the docks. . The commission itself then went to federal court seeking an injunction against the state and Murphy, by then the new governor. It argued that New Jersey could not decide for itself that it no longer wanted to honor its obligations under a bilateral compact ratified by Congress.could not just abandon the agreement. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the ruling.