We make no apologies for holding state agencies to the highest standards,” said James Allen, Gov. Cuomo’s communications director. That’d be great — if the standard he had in mind wasn’t merely “pushing them to keep New Yorkers informed about the excellent work they’re doing.”
Allen was justifying his lecture last week to the public-relations flacks at 55 agencies to step up the good-news press releases — or else. As Carl Campanile reported in Wednesday’s Post, a source quotes Cuomo’s flack-in-chief as warning: “If you don’t generate more press releases . . . changes will be made!”
Whether it was a threat (which wouldn’t be uncommon in New York politics or from Team Cuomo) or just the “pep talk” Allen later claimed, it got results: a flurry of agency press releases touting various achievements, hoorah!
If only Allen, or someone like him, had been cracking the whip to uphold “the highest standards” back in 2014, when state environmental officials failed to warn Hoosick Falls about its contaminated groundwater.
Or if somebody were pushing the highest ethical standards back when top Cuomo aides were allegedly rigging contracts in a scandal still being investigated by US Attorney Preet Bharara.
Pushing flacks to do their jobs is fair enough; the gov wants to get re-elected next year, after all. But everyone else in New York surely worries more about getting good work from the state employees who are supposed to serve the public’s needs.