Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Mayor and the New Pension Investment Board

At the NYCERS investment meeting on Tuesday, 11/15/2011, Liu's first deputy comptroller, Mr. Eric Eve, had to sit and take a pounding from the NYCERS trustees who were left out in the cold about the 10/27/2011 press release announcing the "proposal" for a new pension investment board. The press release was lead by the mayor with the comptroller in tow.

So why was everyone throwing verbal rocks at Eric Eve while Ms. Ranji Nagaswami, the mayor's appointed NYCERS trustee, sat comfortably at the head of the table? You would think that the mayor had nothing to do with trying to cut two major unions, the Public Advocate, and the five borough presidents out of the the investment decision process at NYCERS.

How did Bloomberg dump this pile of garbage in Liu's lap and walk away with clean hands?

Of course, Mr. Eve did not give any specific details of the how this new board would be structured and operate. I suspect that is because either he had no details or because any hard details would have pissed the hell out of the trustee who had not been consulted. But I think it's was really equal parts of both. For example, it was very "unprofessional" of him to say that passion was going to be one of the requirements for membership on the new investment board. How do you evaluate passion?

You wonder where elected officials find these staff people.

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