Spin Cycle

The city's first-ever emergency-management director, in a position created by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, says the presidential candidate is not telling the truth about the ill-fated decision to site the city's command center in 7 World Trade Center. Jerome Hauer was succeeded in the job by Richard Sheirer, a former fire dispatcher, who has remained all along with Giuliani. At the same time, former Sheirer deputy John Odermatt, a career NYPD man who was the first emergency-management director under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, emerges on the Giuliani campaign team, in part saying he did not know whether the former mayor ever lobbied Congress on behalf of workers believed sickened due to conditions at the recovery site following the terrorist attacks. On the subject of health trouble from the recovery site, Sen. Hillary Clinton may be looking to offset her potential rival Giuliani's strength as "America's Mayor." Some municipal veterans who were working down there say that in contrast to Rudy she's been up front trying to push for benefits. Watch for her to play that hand if and when the time comes.
Dan Janison