>From today's NY Times:
Giuliani Names Career Police Administrator as Sanitation Chief
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani tapped a high-ranking police official Monday
to be the city's next Sanitation Commissioner, saying the official,
Kevin Farrell, was "perfectly suited" to the challenge of closing the
giant Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island.
Farrell, 58, has spent his entire 37-year career in the Police
Department. He was most recently the executive officer of the
Detective Bureau, supervising all of the department's detective
squads. He has also served as the commanding officer overseeing the 26
detective squads in Manhattan, and in supervisory positions in Queens,
on Staten Island and at the Police Academy.
The job of Sanitation Commissioner has become more high profile in
recent months as the Giuliani administration has introduced
complicated, controversial plans to divert the flow of residential
garbage from Fresh Kills to transfer stations throughout the city, and
ultimately to out-of-state landfills. Responding to intense pressure
from voters and Republican leaders on Staten Island, Giuliani and Gov.
George E. Pataki promised in 1996 that the landfill would close by
Dec. 31, 2001.
Farrell is replacing John J. Doherty, who resigned as Sanitation
Commissioner in September after four years in the job. Doherty joined
the Sanitation Department as a garbage collector in 1960, and had
slowly risen through the ranks. After Doherty resigned last fall,
Michael Carpinello, the department's First Deputy Commissioner, became
Acting Commissioner.
Farrell is close to Guy V. Molinari, the Republican Staten Island
Borough President, who is one of Giuliani's most devoted political
allies and who has led the call for the closing of Fresh Kills. But
during a news conference at City Hall yesterday, Giuliani said Farrell
was getting the job because of the "knowledge and experience he gained
in dealing closely with both uniformed and civilian personnel" in the
Police Department.
As Sanitation Commissioner, Farrell will oversee 7,000 uniformed
sanitation workers and 2,000 clerical employees whose duties include
collecting residential garbage and recyclable items and clearing the
streets of litter and snow. The position has an annual salary of
$141,099. He said yesterday that his goals were simple: making sure
that Fresh Kills closes on time, and increasing recycling in the city.
"I do, in fact, separate my garbage," Farrell, a lifelong resident of
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, assured an audience of reporters and city
employees at the news conference. "I think that recycling will solve
many of our dilemmas."
Farrell is the second police official that Giuliani has appointed to
head a city agency in recent months. In June, he named Wilbur Chapman,
the Police Department's chief of patrol, as Transportation
Commissioner.
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Steve Hammer
Hammer Environmental Consulting
5294 Sycamore Ave.
Bronx, NY 10471
tel: 718-548-5285
fax: 718-548-5257
s_hammer@ix.netcom.com