NYT,pg1: Waterfront Project Reflects 2 Images of NJ Senator Menendez

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Waterfront Project Reflects 2 Images of a Senator
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and RAY RIVERA
Published: October 29, 2006


Dith Pran/The New York Times
A new development is to be built along this stretch of waterfront in Bayonne, N.J. Some of the supporters of Robert Menendez have obtained work in connection with the project, but he says he played no role in securing any of those contracts.

BAYONNE, N.J. — Senator Robert Menendez is not directly involved in building the new waterfront development that will soon rise here in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. But his influence can be seen throughout it.

The project, which occupies the 437-acre site of the abandoned Military Ocean Terminal, is being built with the help of nearly $30 million in federal funds that Mr. Menendez secured using his trademark policy expertise and aggressive politicking. His work provided the seed money for a plan to produce movie studios and shops, marinas and waterfront parks, and 6,600 homes.

The project has also produced considerable work for some of his chief political supporters.

The first major contract to develop the site went to a company that hired a Menendez friend and political confidant, Donald Scarinci, to lobby for it. That developer later took on Mr. Menendez’s former campaign treasurer, Carl Goldberg, as a partner. Bonds for a portion of the project were underwritten by Dennis Enright, a top campaign contributor, while Kay LiCausi, a former Menendez Congressional aide and major fund-raiser, received lucrative work lobbying for the project.

Mr. Menendez said he had no role in securing the contracts for any of his friends. But the project, known as the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, nonetheless displays the two contrasting images of Mr. Menendez — one a fiery advocate who brings home federal aid for his constituents, the other a political empire builder who detractors say pushes too much largess toward his friends.

Whether the considerable clout wielded by Mr. Menendez in Congress is matched by cronyism, or worse, at home, has become one of the central issues in the Senate race he is waging against State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., his Republican challenger....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/nyregion/29menendez.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1162141446-dXyJy3tMaP5hxzAe2aWGTA