Bloomberg chooses inexperienced mayoral aide for DEP commissioner

From the Daily News:

Now that he's got a third election win behind him and four more years ahead, Mayor Bloomberg seems in no hurry to launch that staff shakeup he once proposed.

He sent word early in his campaign he planned to move people around and bring in fresh blood to keep his third term from getting stale.

Then, last month, he said he hoped to replace as many as eight of his 40 commissioners - although some of those, like retiring Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, are tired after years in the job and would likely have left anyway.

So, while outside observers play Kremlinologist to look for signs of who will stay or go, insiders don't expect many big names to exit anytime soon.

"What you're going to see is very little to no meaningful turnover in the next few months," said one person in a position to know.

Some key staffers may switch positions inside the bullpen on the second floor of City Hall, say people who speak with the mayor every day.

But most of those shufflers are chiefs of staff and advisers - the sort of low-profile but high-impact people who are invisible to the public but critical to making the trains run on time.

From the NY Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said he will remain vastly ambitious in his third term, and is committed to a sweeping environmental agenda.

But on Monday, after conducting a 13-month international search for a new environmental commissioner, he chose a 36-year-old City Hall aide who has scant experience in the field.

The appointment of Caswell F. Holloway IV, who since 2006 has served as chief of staff to Edward Skyler, a deputy mayor, raised the eyebrows of some policy experts and leaders of good-government groups. They said the move signaled that the mayor was increasingly relying on a tight-knit inner circle at a time when he could benefit from fresh energy and new perspectives.

The mayor’s staff described Mr. Holloway as a deft behind-the-scenes problem-solver who pushed through a plan for a citywide waste management system, over the objections of a state lawmaker; oversaw the collection of human remains found at ground zero years after the attack; and drew up plans to revive the unsightly Gowanus Canal.

And we all know how successful those were...