New MTA big tries to ease away from gov

There’s a new sheriff in town at the MTA, and she’s not messing around.

The agency’s Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny spent her first week in office hyping up damaged timekeeping equipment at two MTA workplaces. Now she’s embarked on a tour of the city’s transit facilities.

She has popped up at subway maintenance facilities, surveyed tunnel conditions and examined deepcleaning work on subway platforms.

Pokorny, a career prosecutor who most recently worked for Gov. Cuomo, touts herself as an independent investigator. She’s done stints for former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office. Her first job out of law school was at the Bronx district attorney’s office, where she worked under Barry Kluger, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s outgoing inspector general.

“He [Cuomo] came to me and said he wanted a very strong prosecutor with a very strong federal background who would be independent, respected and be fierce,” Pokorny told the Daily News in her first interview since taking the job. “He asked me if I would help come up with some names, and then I pulled a Dick Cheney and suggested myself.”

Despite her declaration of independence, the activities Pokorny has chosen to look into during her first two weeks on the job have raised concerns about the governor’s influence over her office and the MTA in general.

“Independence is something you expect by action, not by the structure of the office,” said Rachael Fauss, an analyst at good government group Reinvent Ablany. “As far as judgment on her at this point, it’s been heavily weighted at issues where the governor has a lot of influence. She’s going to have a longer tenure, so to judge now would be premature.”

Cuomo has over the past several months railed against overtime abuse and outdated timekeeping systems at the MTA while hailing the effectiveness of the $836 million Subway Action Plan launched in 2017.

Pokorny has spent her tenure thus far educating herself on each of those issues, often publicizing findings on the inspector general’s official Twitter account.

The social media account is run for now by Gareth Rhodes, a former upstate congressional candidate who has been detailed to the office from the state’s Department of Financial Services.

Rhodes wears many hats, and is Pokorny’s de facto chief of staff. He previously worked in Cuomo’s press shop.