Hope on the Board of Elections
For all the legitimate complaints about the city Board of Elections and their routine democracy-damaging screw-ups, royal and otherwise, this page regularly reminds the complainers to blame the Democratic and Republican party leaders in each borough who appoint the 10 commissioners. So today we offer unreserved praise to Manhattan Democratic leader Keith Wright who picked an absolute winner to be the newest commissioner, Carol Edmead.
Ditto for the City Council’s Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections which backed her 9-0 and the full Council which voted her in 48-0 last Thursday.
When Wright’s first choice, party apparatchik Barry Weinberg, fell apart in December, Wright brilliantly tapped Edmead, who just finished 24 years as a very honorable judge, on Manhattan state Supreme Court and Civil Court before that.
A top-tier judge, Edmead was approved for the 24-months extended term the maximum of three times, until she had to retire from judicial service on Dec. 31.
In her final assignment, she was brought in to clean up the horrible mess left by the awful Harriet Thompson in Brooklyn surrogate court. We wish Edmead had been able to stay at it, but under the state Constitution, she had to retire from the bench at the end of last year.
It is so much better to have as a commissioner an ethical former judge, not someone who’ll put relatives on the payroll to scam health insurance coverage or be angling to run for office or get a high-paying job on the board (or do both, as one commissioner did).
Edmead’s first meeting as a commissioner was yesterday, at which the board promptly went into secret session for 45 minutes of the 50-minute meeting while tabling the only item on the agenda. We hope that Edmead will imbue the forlorn agency with her high standards, impeccable ethics and commitment to excellence. And we trust that the board won’t infect Edmead with its many faults.
The Staten Island Democratic commissioner has just quit. Staten Island Dems should follow Wright’s example and find another distinguished retired judge.