Did Gov. Paterson dole out a six-figure, do-nothing job as a golden parachute for a politically connected bureaucrat — just as the state faced its worst fiscal crisis in a generation?
Let’s hope he did.
Because the alternative — that the governor was actually taking the counsel of Downtown development chief Avi Schick — would be truly frightening.
The Post’s Tom Topousis reported recently that Paterson quietly let Schick keep drawing his $213,000-a-year state salary for eight months after he’d resigned as head of the state’s economic-development agency in January — by hiring him as an “adviser” on Downtown rebuilding.
Schick, a close ally of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, remains the (unpaid) chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., where he’s dawdled for years over the deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero.
What kind of advice could Schick possibly have to offer — creative new ways to further stall work?
Most likely, Schick was merely given the adviser post to kill time. He left that job this month mere days before he was hired by a Manhattan law office.
Then again, given Paterson’s recent fecklessness on Ground Zero — notably his inability to mitigate the latest dispute between the Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein — it wouldn’t be surprising if Schick did have his ear.
Either way, the payout’s outrageous.
It’s bad enough to take lousy advice — worse yet to pay for it with
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