Huge spike in blog page views this am. I wonder what people were looking for?

Perhaps my thoughts on Ellen Biben's resignation to pursue other challenges?

I might have to disappoint the readers because if you don't know what I think about Ellen Biben you haven't been reading the blog .

Suffice to say I need to check the ethics hunting laws to find out what the legal limit is for ethics heads.  I'm up to six and I gotta believe I'm nearing my legal limit.

Now as to what should happen next here is a roadmap.

They will appoint a search committee (probably controlled by the governor but we can hope for at least an even split between gubanatorial appointees and legislative appointees) who will conduct a national search before selecting another executive director in the mold of Biben Ginsberg and Teitelbaum (and no I don't mean another smart new york city lawyer) I mean someone who knows how to follow orders.  That would be a mistake.  You don't need to go thru the routine of a fake search followed by the phony press release that, lo and behold, the best person was really someone with close ties to the governor.  Try honesty, you should target the person you want and then recruit them to fill the position asap.  And that person has to be uncontrollable.  If you want my suggestion I would say try to convince Blair Horner to take the job.

After selecting the "best person after the national search" they will ask Biben to help with the transition.  Another mistake.  Biben has resigned you should ask her to leave today.  And she should take everyone she brought in with her.  The next person deserves a clean slate to rebuild the agency that Biben wasted a full year destroying.  It's like cockroaches its not what they steal its what they touch so no one else wants it ever again.

If you are reading this blog Mr. Horwitz or if the human smokestack John Milgram has sent it to you fire Milgram and then learn from the past mistakes made by John Feerick, Michael Cherkasky and Janet DiFiore the last administration at ethics is not who you should take advice from if they were any good they wouldn't be the last administration.

And for those who are going to say Grandeau just wants the job, I don't.  But I would be more than happy to offer EthicsWatch as a solution.  Give EthicsWatch 80% of JCOPE's budget and enter into a contract with EthicsWatch to do everything JCOPE does, now you have outsourced the function to a nonpartisan independent organization that will have clearly defined deliverables for services.  You can then get rid of all the JCOPE employees and if the job isn't done right you can blame me.

Or don't and I'll just keep hunting because I've learned their is no limit on the number of public officials you can bag on ethics hunting trips.

Now where did I leave my high capacity fully automatic blog?