Gov. Mikie Sherrill secured a deputy director position that had been vacant for 13 years, giving New Jersey a stronger voice at the Port Authority.
found herself in a backroom standoff with New York’s governor over who would wield authority over control of the region’s transportation agency. At issue between Sherrill and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was leadership at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs the region’s ports, bridges, tunnels, and airports.
In the end, they struck a deal that reshapes the structure of an agency in one of the country’s most transit‑dense corridors. It also lands after years of friction between the two states over its governance. Sherrill agreed to the appointment of Kathryn Garcia, a former top aide to Hochul, as the authority’s new executive director. In return, Hochul signed off on Jean Roehrenbeck, a former Sherrill aide, becoming deputy executive director, a position that had sat vacant for 13 years. The agreement is widely viewed by New Jersey insiders and experts as an early victory for Sherrill, restoring a position designed to give the state and its commuters a stronger voice. Under the deal, Sherrill agreed that Roehrenbeck would report to Garcia, while Garcia would answer to the Port Authority’s board of commissioners. Experts said the structure is designed to avoid the pitfalls of the past.Steve Sigmund, a spokesman for Sherrill, told NJ.com that the governor “knows the Port Authority succeeds when New York and New Jersey work together with focus and purpose.” “Ensuring there is a Deputy Executive Director who is a senior leader in the structure of the agency means not just that New Jerseyans will be well served, but that projects that are vital for the entire region like the Gateway Tunnel and the rebuild of the Midtown Bus Terminal will move forward quickly and effectively,” Sigmund said in a statement.The Port Authority’s leadership had long operated under a two‑state structure: New York appointed the executive director, while New Jersey filled the deputy executive director role.She did so after concluding that then–New York Gov. George Pataki’s choice for executive director “had neither the organizational skills nor the experience to manage one of the most important transportation agencies in the world,” according to Philip Plotch, principal researcher and senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation. “She selected a deputy who could complement the executive director,” said Plotch who wrote the book, “Mobilizing the Metropolis, a history of the Port Authority.”There were “legitimate reasons” for the deputy job, Wright said, but “the problem was it essentially became a parallel structure and that deputy executive director did not report to the executive director, which really fractured the agency before Bridgegate.”At the time, Christie ally Bill Baroni was serving as deputy executive director and was implicated in the scheme that shut down lanes on the George Washington Bridge, causing days of gridlock in Fort Lee. The closures were political payback after the town’s Democratic mayor declined to endorse Christie for reelection in 2013. Christie has denied knowing about the plan. Baroni was convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud in federal court, though the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the conviction. His former job has remained vacant ever since.In December, Hochul nominated Garcia, a former New York City sanitation commissioner and mayoral candidate, to take over for retiring Rick Cotton as executive director. But Sherrill added one condition — she wanted to revive the deputy role, which had been vacant since 2013. Hochul pushed back, delaying Garcia’s nomination.One early flashpoint involved the PATH railroad. New Jersey demanded the agency purchase it before supporting construction of the World Trade Center, according to James Hughes, dean emeritus of Rutgers’ Bloustein School. The problem, Plotch said, was that the Port Authority evolved into two separate fiefdoms — one answering to Trenton and the other to Albany. “Departments had one senior manager who focused on New York projects and another working on New Jersey’s priorities,” he said. “That organizational structure is what led to Bridgegate.”, with then‑Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissing it as a New Jersey project — even though the average New Jersey commuter paid about $8,500 a year in income tax to New York, Plotch said. The project ultimately moved forward under Hochul and former Gov. Phil Murphy, with retired Executive Director Rick Cotton and Chairman Kevin O’Toole shepherding it Both governors appoint members to the board, which is led by O’Toole. Murphy reappointed him just before leaving office last month. Experts said the authority ran smoothly for almost nine years under the leadership of O’Toole and now-retired executive director Cotton. “Rick was the boss and worked respectfully with Kevin who had input. Kevin knew if Rick agreed to it, he’d do it,” Wright said. “Kevin and Rick worked out the budget and priorities, and it was Rick’s responsibility to implement them.”In the end, Sherrill filled the post with Roehrenbeck, her former congressional chief of staff who later served as assistant U.S. transportation secretary. “Just because personalities have clashed in the past does not mean the same thing must necessarily happen again going forward,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “It ought to be possible for both states to keep their eyes and ears on the Port Authority without feeling threatened by the other state doing the same.” Experts agreed that reviving the position ensured New Jersey once again has a top‑level representative within the authority who can advocate for the state and its travelers — and who has a direct line to the governor.the “governors came together and figured out how to get past the impasse” and not let it “drag on.” Hochul said she was “delighted that the entire region will now benefit.” Roehrenbeck will give the state “a person of the most senior level at the agency day in and day out” to ensure “New Jersey’s interests are looked after, protected,” a New Jersey source familiar with the situation told NJ.com. The source — who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue freely — downplayed the discord between Sherrill and Hochul, stressing the disagreement was resolved through negotiations rather than a “steamrolling in a very public way.”Said Plotch: “For the organization to be most effective — the executive director, a deputy, and the board of directors all have to be singing from the same song sheet." Another Democratic insider familiar with the discussions said Sherrill’s request “wasn’t a huge ask,” especially because the relationship between New York and New Jersey isn’t as “radioactive” as it was just after Bridgegate.Yet another Democratic insider said it was “shrewd” for Sherrill to stand her ground. “You stake your fight with Kathy Hochul right now on this,” the source said. The concern is this may revive acrimony between the two states. The first source shot that down, saying it’s “the opposite” because Sherrill offered to have the deputy answer to the executive director “in the organizational line.”But experts said they don’t believe this is a return to the bad old days of in-fighting between the states and gridlock moving major projects. “I think the governor is doing the right thing by having a deputy executive director who should be at the table,” Hughes said.Larry Higgs is the transportation and commuting reporter at NJ.com and the Star-Ledger, covering a wide range of topics affecting how we travel in one of the most congested states in the country. Whether on...
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