Giuliani's Critics Point to Cronyism

To replace Safir as fire commissioner in 1996, Giuliani chose Thomas Von Essen, a rank-and-file firefighter who was far down the department's chain of command but headed the firefighters union local that backed Giuliani in 1993. Also in 1996, Giuliani selected a nationally known bioterrorism expert, Jerome Hauer, to head his new office of emergency management. But Hauer left in 2000, partly out of frustration with Giuliani's inability to get the police and fire departments to cooperate more.

Giuliani replaced Hauer with Richie Sheirer, an early supporter of the mayor's and an aide to Safir who spent most of his career as a fire department dispatcher. Sheirer and Von Essen both met with tough questioning by the Sept. 11 commission over the failure of the fire department's radios and the lack of coordination among public safety agencies the day of the attacks. They now both work for Giuliani's security consulting firm and did not return a call seeking comment. Safir also did not return calls.

Hauer said the limits of Giuliani's leadership team became clear to him after he returned at City Hall's request to help out after the Sept. 11 attacks and was startled to discover that neither Kerik nor Von Essen nor Sheirer had ever obtained federal security clearance, which made it hard for Hauer to discuss information he was receiving from Washington. Shortly afterward, Giuliani banished Hauer from Ground Zero after Hauer endorsed a Democrat to succeed the mayor.

Giuliani "had a blind spot when it came to people he knew well" and "very little respect for the vetting process," Hauer said. "The competent people in the administration all tended to leave because they got tired of the borderline-incompetent people who got in. He ran off the professionals because they were difficult to work with. If they didn't do things the way he wanted or overshadowed him, he got furious."

Fran Reiter, a deputy mayor under Giuliani, said most initial Cabinet hires came via a "very extensive search process," but the mayor was more likely to emphasize personal ties when it came to public safety jobs. Giuliani wanted ownership over that realm because of his law enforcement background, she said. And he worried that department veterans who he did not have ties with would have more allegiance to the departments than to him.

"These were areas where he just really wanted people whom he trusted and who were not going to do anything other than what he wanted them to do," she said.

Giuliani's most ill-fated promotion, other than Kerik's, was his 1998 choice to run the city's Housing Development Corp.: Russell Harding, the son of the former head of New York's Liberal Party, whose backing of Giuliani was crucial in his election. Harding had no college degree or background in housing and finance, and was eventually convicted of stealing more than $300,000 from the agency and sentenced to more than five years in prison for the embezzlement and for possessing child pornography. In "Leadership," Giuliani wrote that there is nothing wrong with hiring supporters if they are qualified. "Patronage does not mean giving a job to someone who supported you politically," he writes. "It means giving a job to someone only because he supported you politically."

Gelber, for one, argues that the latter definition applied to the Giuliani administration. She freely admits she got her job for political reasons -- she was chief of staff to the Brooklyn borough president, and to curry favor with him, a Democrat, Giuliani hired her as his first environment commissioner. At first, she was impressed with Giuliani's zeal to "look for new ideas and new ways of doing things," which included organizing thoughtful seminars on governance for Cabinet members.

But she grew disillusioned when she started getting pressure from City Hall to hire political supporters and fire those from the previous administration, including a secretary, as well as criticism for receiving too much praise in the newspapers for her work. Things came to a head, she said, when City Hall told her to hire an applicant for a key deputy post overseeing air quality who presented as his qualification some materials on his work for the Giuliani campaign, including a thank-you letter from the mayor.

Gelber eventually gave in but blew up at the deputy in 1996 after two asbestos incidents in which she says he failed to take charge. Giuliani fired her shortly afterward.