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Port Authority : too cheap the hang Old Glory on July Fourth due too overtime concerns on George Washington Bridge
Port Authority : too cheap the hang Old Glory on July Fourth due too overtime concerns on George Washington Bridge
$12 toll not enough to hang the American Flag of July 4th ?
Blatant disregard for American Values
A slap in the face to American Tax payers
Readers ask where was the Governor ?
FRIDAY, JULY 6, 2012
BY KAREN ROUSE
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
On the most patriotic day of the year, Peter and Ruth Adler looked out from their Fort Lee apartment on Wednesday expecting to see Old Glory waving from the George Washington Bridge, a vision that had inspired feelings of national pride every Fourth of July for as long as they could remember.
Instead, what they saw seemed like an odd twist on the “The Star-Spangled Banner”: The flag was not there.
Alarmed, Ruth Adler called the Port Authority to ask about the whereabouts of 450-pound banner – the world’s largest free-flying flag — and was told that the agency, which has been scrutinized for excessive spending, was suddenly clamping down on overtime.
“They said the reason [they] took it down is they didn’t want to pay overtime, which means people would have to come back in the evening to roll it up,” she said. “Twelve-dollar tolls on the busiest bridge in the country [and the Port Authority] can’t afford to pay a couple dollars extra on the hanging of the flag?
