Dead wrong
Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Wayne Saitta should have cleaned up the mess caused by Brooklyn Surrogate Judge Harriet Thompson illegally meddling with the city commissioner handling estates without wills or heirs. But Saitta’s decision that came down Wednesday got it very wrong and made the Thompson chaos, documented by the city comptroller, worse. The city Law Department, which was suing to stop Thompson from interfering with Brooklyn Public Administrator Rick Buckheit, must immediately ask the Appellate Division to undo Saitta’s foolishness.
Ideally, the public administrator should be a mayoral appointee. But the law, stupid as it is, remains clear that the surrogate judge can only appoint and remove the PA. However, since Brooklyn has two surrogates (another Albany stupidity, as Brooklyn was fine with one surrogate before a 2005 backroom deal), both needed to act in tandem. Thus Thompson had no power to suspend Buckheit and could only remove him with the agreement of Surrogate Margarita Lopez Torres, who rightly backs Buckheit.
Saitta crazily disagrees, pointing to another section of law concerning judicial actions, not the PA, that in counties with two surrogates, “all of the powers conferred by law upon a judge of the surrogate’s court may be exercised by either of such judges.”
He even notes, “the potential problems of this arrangement are readily apparent.” You think? Like judge A appointing a PA and judge B the next minute firing the same PA and appointing someone else. And even if Thompson could act unilaterally, she can’t suspend, she can only appoint and remove.
Two days after Saitta’s nonsensical decision, Deputy Public Administrator Aaishatu Glover, who had resigned to both Thompson and Lopez Torres, tried to take it back. Citing the state Public Officers Law §31.4, Lopez Torres refused to agree, which means the job is now vacant, but Glover says Thompson says she can stay, which may be under Saitta’s insanity. Buckheit should heed Lopez Torres and remove all duties from Glover. And the appellate court must quickly end his farce and find that Thompson has broken the law.