David Dinkins and New York City Politics: Race, Images, and the Media

4. THE STAFFING OF DINKINS’ CITY HALL

C H A P T E R F O U R THE STAFFING OF DINKINS’ CITY HALL D avid Dinkins was trained as a city politician, not a municipal administrator. The staff chosen by his administration would become a part of the ecological image constructed by the media. Mayors need help making and explaining decisions, and a new mayor must find people who can read numbers (those associated with the budget and polls), understand municipal department culture, and link him to the various constituencies . One of the first stories reported during a new mayor’s transition concerns the staff chosen for administration. Most incoming mayors try to promote the idea of an open and collegial staff. However, since mayors are politicians, their first instinct is usually to survive. Picking the people who will make them look good should be the first priority. Some incoming mayors are often unaware that staff appointments can affect their images. Fewer of them are aware how aides will react to newly acquired power and status. As we shall see in later chapters, the names of staff members surface as the media tries to sort up a crisis. Selling a public image accelerates during the transition period . Journalists are aware that much knowledge can be gained by analyzing the staff appointments. The New York Times assigned several reporters to write brief biographies on the Dinkins appointees. They assumed that readers wanted to know who was selected for what departments and which individuals would be on the mayor’s personal staff. “Mayor watchers” see the appointments as cues for understanding a mayor’s judgment and values. Words such as diversity, inclusion, professionalism, The Staffing of Dinkins’ City Hall 83 and experience are woven into our lexicon and become a part of the new administration’s story. New names and management themes are introduced during this period of transition. This chapter will discuss the appointments of Dinkins. Appointments act as (a) public image builders, (b) signals for policy, and (c) reassurances for members of the permanent bureaucracy (the civil service). In this arena campaign promises and the biography of the candidate’s close advisor are important. If the mayor stresses the need for personnel or policy change in the campaign, then an effort will be made to appoint outsiders or proven administrators to head a troubled permanent bureaucracy. With every change in each administration, there are payoff appointments. Most politicians can identify individuals who are their career facilitators. Reporters try to separate the traditional patronage appointments from the obligatory managerial appointments . Patronage appointees are usually longtime friends, supporters, and associates. Mayors use such people as personal and liaison staffing and as such are rarely given management responsibilities in city departments. Other mayoral appointees are party loyalists who are hired to work in the city departments. These appointments are a way to repay a mayor’s debts to volunteers , supporters, and fundraisers. The managerial staff members organize the mayor’s office, lead departments, and carry out administrative duties. In 1964, Theodore Lowi’s At the Pleasure of the Mayor suggested that New York mayors had little control over appointments .1 This tradition can be traced back to the Tammany Hall era, to the infamous New York City political machine. Mayors who were elected on so-called fusion or reform tickets were also constrained by political considerations. These politicians understood the nature of their political obligations. Lowi asserts that the “Mayor is not a mute pawn, but neither is he a free agent.”2 Mayors have to consult with party leaders before making appointments . Because there are so many positions and so few political activists with appropriate credentials, the new mayor is forced to look outside the immediate circle for talent. Lowi characterized these appointments as having “indexes” or “tracer elements” that identified the composition of the city power structure. In other words, various interest groups wanted to have their members represented in the newly formed government. Few 84 DAVID DINKINS AND NEW YORK CITY POLITICS self-starters get mayoral appointments. The old Chicago political machine adage “We Don’t Want Anybody Anybody Sent” applies to some extent in New York. In order for one to acquire a top-level job, one needs a referral. The individual who makes the referral must have a political account with the newly elected mayor; otherwise it becomes less likely for an applicant to get a job. The...