Editor’s note: This week, City Limits reinstates Ins and Outs, a semi-regular column that chronicles the latest hirings, firings and retirings from New York’s nonprofits and government agencies. To suggest an item, please email announcements to weekly@citylimits.org.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced the appointment this week of Rafael Cestero as Deputy Commissioner for Development. Cestero currently serves as Director of New York Programs for the Enterprise Foundation, where he helped build roughly 1,600 units per year, including special needs, homeless and mixed-income housing, and worked extensively with HPD. Cestero fills a critical spot in the agency, one that has been vacant since early December, when Bill Traylor returned to his post as president of the Richman Group, a real estate firm.

Chris Meyer bids farewell to the New York Public Interest Research Group after more than seven years as executive director and 20 years on staff. Meyer will be replaced by another longtime staffer, Rebecca Weber, who has overseen the group’s arts and graphics department, and supervised program, campus and development staff.

New York lawyer Gerald Rosenberg joins Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s team as Charities Bureau Chief. Rosenberg was an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, before accepting a partnership at KMZ Roseman, where he practiced litigation, trusts and estates, non-profit and tax law. Rosenberg will begin in August, replacing William Josephson, a high-profile public interest lawyer who held the post for the past five years. Rosenberg may have his work cut out for him: In January, City Limits magazine chronicled problems in the bureau including understaffing and low pay [see “Charity Busters,” January 2004].

Marilyn Shea, a outspoken critic of workforce policy under Giuliani, is taking over the helm of the city Workforce Investment Board, the agency charged with strengthening links between employers and workers. Shea brings 30 years of experience to her post of executive director, most recently having developed federal policy on workforce and welfare-to-work for the labor department’s Office of Adult Services. The WIB also recently named Rae Linefsky as a member. Currently at United Way of New York City, Linefsky briefly served as commissioner of the city’s welfare agency.

Bruce Herman joins the National Employment Law Project as executive director in late June. Herman ran the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute in Washington, D.C. and later joined the Consortium for Worker Education, where he founded the Center for Workforce and Economic Development, a project of to help local businesses and workers in the wake of September 11th.

Housing developer Mark Alexander has struck out on his own with an East Harlem-based firm focused on expanding home ownership and mixed income housing. Alexander is best known as the embattled former director of the nonprofit Hope Community, where his market-based approach helped double the agency’s revenue, but also drew complaints from low-income tenants [see “Lost Hope,” City Limits Weekly, 2/23/04].