A Shaky Decision for 'Buildings'

No sooner had the City Council approved a bill ending the requirement that the city Buildings Commissioner be either a licensed Engineer or a Registered Architect than Mayor Bloomberg took advantage of the greater discretion, appointing Robert LiMandri to the post the following day.

Mr. LiMandri is an engineer but lacks a professional license. He had been more vigilant about Buildings Department practices, with a heavy emphasis on inspections, since being given the job on an acting basis four months ago after Patricia Lancaster resigned under fire.

The bill was sharply criticized by Robert Stelianou, who heads the State Society of Professional Engineers. He noted that there had been 13 construction-related deaths since mid-March, and suggested that was a strong argument against a move "to downgrade the requirements of New York's top building official."

Obviously a case could be made that since the most-notorious of the accidents that caused those deaths — a crane collapse in mid-March — occurred during the tenure of Ms. Lancaster, who is a Registered Architect, having a Commissioner who holds that professional license is no assurance the agency will be run well. On the other hand, someone who has that professional license may be less willing to jeopardize his or her reputation by bending to the political winds that sometimes sway decisions at the agency.

During the Giuliani administration, one Buildings Commissioner found his ability to hire and promote bottled up by City Hall until he transferred a Brooklyn Borough Commissioner who incurred the wrath of politically wired Hasidic developers.

At present, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is reported to be considering indicting the Bloomberg administration for the lack of inspections by both the Buildings and Fire departments prior to the Deutsche Bank fire a year ago that claimed the lives of two Firefighters. The continuing mystery is why two different city agencies neglected their duties in ensuring that the demolition of the structure was carried out safely. There is some suspicion that they were steered away from being diligent because of a desire by someone high up in city government to get the building quickly cleared away so that new development could begin on the site.

We won't know for sure at least until the DA's Office brings its case. But the timing for de-professionalizing the job of Buildings Commissioner certainly seems curious under the circumstances.

Mr. Bloomberg clearly believes that persons with good administrative skills can step in and run city agencies without having a background in their operations. His Schools Chancellor is a former Federal prosecutor, and Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta has no background in firefighting.

Other Mayors have gone that route in picking Police Commissioners over the past three decades, but with decidedly mixed results. Our guess is that there would be a strong consensus that the two best Police Commissioners, without question, during that era were men who were career cops: Bill Bratton and the current Commissioner, Ray Kelly.

Having expertise in the field is no guarantee that someone will be a strong Commissioner. But it does make it more likely that that person will clearly grasp the situations in which expediency cannot be used to justify overlooking practices that ensure a safe workplace.

We wish Mr. LiMandri well, but we also wonder whether the Mayor and the City Council have made a mistake that will reverberate long after Mr. Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn have left office.