Pataki Races To Install Cronies In Top Jobs at State Agencies

ALBANY - Less than nine months before he steps down, Governor Pataki is busy installing his friends and political allies into top positions at the most powerful state authorities.

Many of Mr. Pataki's appointments are for terms that expire well into the next governor's administration, raising fears among state Democrats that the governor is leaving behind an imprint of power and patronage that will be difficult to erase.

Democrats say Mr. Pataki is reappointing authority board members before their terms have expired to maximize the window of time between when his successor assumes office and when the appointees' terms expire.

A spokesman for Mr. Pataki said the governor wasn't making "midnight appointments," but was simply filling vacancies as he would normally at any point in his term. Many of the appointments were to fill slots that were added by new regulations approved last year that increased the sizes of a number of the boards.

A Democratic senator of Manhattan, Liz Krueger, said Mr. Pataki "appears to be moving people into" multi-year slots as board members of authorities "when he's basically leaving office."

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a lawmaker from Westchester who has long called for greater scrutiny of the authorities, said the Pataki administration wants "to maintain power even after the next election."

State Democrats increasingly are trying to turn Mr. Pataki's lame-duck maneuverings into a political issue. The Assembly balked at Mr. Pataki's push to create a new Medicaid fraud inspector general who would be appointed by the governor to serve a five-year term. Democrats said it was unfair that Mr. Pataki would be able to pick a person who would oversee Medicaid beyond the first term of the next governor. The disagreement was a key reason why the inspector general plan was left out of the Legislature's budget.

Described by the state comptroller as a "large semi-secret unsupervised government empire," the state's more than 600 public authorities have amassed more than $100 billion in debt to finance public infrastructure projects without voter approval. Aside from approving contracts and having power over land use and zoning, board members in upcoming years will play a major role in the increasing privatization of massive infrastructure projects.

Since the beginning of the year, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed two trustees of the Power Authority of the State of New York, a commissioner at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, two Battery Park City Authority members, a member of the New York State Thruway Authority, and two members of the New York State Bridge Authority. Some of the appointees are fund-raisers for Mr. Pataki and others are longtime members of his administration.

Tapping close allies, the governor since January also has appointed several new commissioners of state agencies. Those spots likely will be replaced by the next governor.

The Senate also has confirmed two new appointments to the New York Convention Center Operating Corporation, which operates the Javits Center. Charles Gargano, who is chairman of the center's development corporation, and Alan Wiener, chairman of American Property Financing and a Pataki loyalist, joined the board last month.

The appointments all but guarantee that the body will approve the convention center's $1.7 billion expansion plan, which has come under criticism from the former chairman of the convention center's operating entity, as well as from Senator Schumer and Mr. Brodsky.

Mr. Brodsky said the appointments show that the Pataki administration was "clearly concerned that the plan, which has received enormous criticism ... may not have the votes on the operations board."

A spokeswoman for Mr. Pataki, Lynn Krogh, said the claim that the governor was stuffing the boards is a "bit ridiculous."

"He's pledged to work every day to make the state better for New Yorkers," she said.