“Albany Poser: What Happened to Howard?”

Permit me to offer a bit of free and unsolicited advice to Governor Spitzer [New York, “Albany Poser: What Happened to Howard?” August 3, 2007]. The loaning or, as the British and Canadians say, “seconding” of personnel from government agencies to other agencies or to the executive is a common and useful practice.

In 1988, I was on the payroll of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. I was asked to report to the governor’s director of criminal justice. My expertise and familiarity with the personnel and programs of the various criminal justice agencies subsequently came in handy in dealing with a number of emergency or otherwise out-of-the-ordinary issues that arose.

Now, were I Mr. Spitzer, I would take the position that the function that William Howard heretofore served the governor’s office has become, if not obsolete, routinized to the point where he is most usefully employed as part of the state’s emergency preparedness apparatus.

There is, however, an important and valuable role for the State University of New York in the field of public security.

We all know that two years from now a new presidential administration will be in office. It goes without saying that public security policy will be utterly transformed. The mistakes and bad decisions of the Bush administration will be reversed or corrected.

Mr. Spitzer would be well advised to marshal the intellectual and organizational resources of the world’s greatest public university system to assert New York’s leadership in the development of the nation’s future public security policy.

TERRY O’NEILL
The Constantine Institute
Albany, N.Y.