The Center for an Urban Future (CUF), sister think tank to City Limits, welcomed Jim O’Grady last week as its new research director. New York City native O’Grady succeeds Jonathan Bowles, who became the organization’s director one year ago. O’Grady comes to CUF from NYU, where he taught reporting skills to journalism graduate students. He covered local news for The City section of The New York Times from 1999 to 2004, authored the biography “Dorothy Day: With Love for the Poor” (Ward Hill Press, 1993) and co-authored “Disarmed & Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan” (Westview Press, 1998). O’Grady’s current projects with CUF include analyzing Staten Island’s economic development potential and examining how the city can enhance the “knowledge-based economy” of its universities and research centers.
Mayor Bloomberg appointed Franklin H. Stone as chairwoman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) earlier this month. Attorney Stone is executive director of the nonprofit legal advocacy organization Common Good and has served as a CCRB commissioner since 1998. She succeeds Hector Gonzalez, a partner at the law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw who joined the CCRB in 2000. Stone is the first woman to head the 13-member CCRB, an independent agency created in 1993 to investigate allegations of excessive force and abuse of authority by members of the NYPD. Stone, who lives in Cobble Hill with her husband and daughter, was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the mid-80’s.
The After-School Corporation named Mark D. Levine executive director of its new Center for After-School Excellence, launching this fall as an initiative to improve the quality of after-school programs by assuring that well trained, highly qualified staff serve all students. Levine most recently served as vice president at One Economy, a national nonprofit helping low-income families use technology to enter the economic mainstream. Before that he directed Teach for America in the New York region and founded Credit Where Credit is Due, an organization promoting economic empowerment among low-income residents of Upper Manhattan. Levine began his public service career teaching math and bilingual education in a New York City public school.
After 32 years of service with New York State, Glenn Goord retired last month from his post as commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). Gov. Pataki named Deputy Commissioner for Correctional Facilities Lucien J. Leclaire as acting commissioner of DCS, overseeing the 31,500 employees and 63,400 inmates at the state’s 69 correctional facilities. Leclaire began his career at DCS in 1977 as a correction officer, rising through the ranks until being appointed director of Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT) operations in 1994. Goord began as a prison drug counselor and rose to the position of commissioner of the nation’s fourth-largest state prison system, earning the highest honor bestowed by the American Correctional Association, the E.R. Cass Award, along the way.
Urban planner Jenifer Becker, from 2002 until last week the director of research and policy at New York Industrial Retention Network, is now an assistant vice president in the energy department at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. A Brooklyn resident, Becker has been working on “green manufacturing” and business-environmental issues, and will serve as EDC liaison to Mayor Bloomberg’s newly-created Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability.
David B. Goldin, most recently chief litigating deputy county attorney in the Office of the Nassau County Attorney, was named the city’s first administrative justice coordinator last month. Mayor Bloomberg created the position after studies and commissions recommended it as a way of enhancing the professionalism, efficiency and accountability of tribunals presided over by administrative law judges and hearing officers. A city native, Goldin also has served as counsel to the former New York City Board of Education, and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and children. Matthew P. Sapolin fills another newly-created position, that of commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, promoted from executive director of that office by Mayor Bloomberg last month. He has served as liaison between the disability community and city government since 2002; before that he was co-executive director for the Queens Independent Living Center.[09/25/06]
