De Blasio Taps Transition Co-Chair as City Planning Commissioner

  This comes from the City & State website and begins -

Either Carl Weisbrod was the best and only man for the job, or he was the last man for the job. The mayor went to great lengths to make it clear that Weisbrod, the co-chair of his transition committee, was indisputably the right choice for a permanent job, drawing on his managerial experience and his history as a former executive director of the Department of City Planning. This was said at a Friday press conference announcing Weisbrod who will be working with Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development.

  “We need someone who not only understands the neighborhoods and communities we’re fighting for, but knows every tool that we have to get the job done. Because of his experience, Carl knows where those tools are,” de Blasio said writes City & State. “We see the City Planning Commission as a central piece of a strategy to change this city’s reality,” de Blasio said. “This is about getting all of the different agencies that have to interconnect in this process to work towards a common goal. That has not been the government that we’ve had here for a number of years.”“The housing authority [NYCHA] was fairly independent from what HPD and HDC was trying to accomplish; it had its own goals, and was moving in its own direction,” the source said. “It would be great if the new administration could bring them closer into the fold.”

  C&S goes on to say Weisbrod worked under both former mayor David Dinkins and Bloomberg, and later served as the head of the real estate division of Trinity Church. However, there are some who feel that de Blasio made an uninspired pick by not bringing in new blood. Harvey Robins, Dinkins’ former director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations, called the selection “very disappointing.” Robins said that Weisbrod’s real estate past and Glen’s previous stint at finance giant Goldman Sachs contrasted with the mayor’s efforts to strike a progressive tone in developing the city’s economy.

  C&S ends with this - both Carl’s appointment and [Glen] if you put those together, it appears to be more of a continuation of Bloomberg.”