If you listened to WBT last night — you were supposed to — you’ve already heard a bit about the latest involving CATS’ new best buddies at Cherokee Investment Partners. There is much, much more detail.
Recall that Cherokee is the outfit CATS’ has turned to help come up with money for the $373 million North commuter line. The line that will create 83,000 jobs within a half-mile of the line — more jobs than Uptown now has — according to Cherokee’s official pitch for funding.
Meanwhile, Cherokee is also developing a $500 million project in the Meadowlands that the New Jersey Attorney General declared to be in default on Monday before the company wired a $146,000 bond to cover insurance costs. A Cherokee subsidiary, EnCap Golf Holdings, has run into budget trouble with a plan to turn a Meadowlands dump into a golf course. That project is funded by public debt much the same way that the North line would be.
An additional $366 million in debt was to be issued for the Meadowlands project, but state officials halted that on fears that the local tax base could not possibly support it and amid reports that Cherokee had steered project business to politically powerful interests.
The New Jersey Inspector General continues to investigate the ongoing EnCap project, from which the AG has demanded a new budget — by today.
Will any of this matter to the Metro Transit Commission when it is asked to approve CATS’ financing plan for the North line in the coming weeks?
Don’t hold your breath.
No amount of real-world evidence seems to have the slightest impact on local officials who lust for trains.
