Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:18:00

By Daniel Macht

Eliot Spitzer’s resignation last month upended Albany’s political universe, reset the clock on budget negotiations and left Gov. David Paterson (D) with less than five days to prepare for his new job.
But the state’s bureaucracy churned onward.
“It was our normal work that had us panicked,” said Karl Felsen, a spokesperson for the New York State Office for Technology. “The whole thing seemed almost routine.”
First, his office sent out an email blast to other state agencies reminding them to post Paterson’s name and picture on state websites after the governor’s inauguration. They also contacted readMedia, the Albany firm that does their media advisories, to update software for the office’s letterhead. Then it was back to planning for their quarterly broadband meeting, Felsen said.

Other state agencies described a similar nonchalance, comparing Spitzer’s abrupt resignation to ordinary administration transitions.

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Claudia Hutton, a spokesperson for the Department of Health, said that when Spitzer first came to office she was instructed not to throw away reports or old promotional material with former Gov. George Pataki’s name on the cover. The department was given the same advice by Paterson’s team, Hutton said.
“The information isn’t wrong just because an old governor’s name is on them,” she said.
Hutton added that her department would not have to spend money to remove Spitzer’s name from things like birth and death certificates since the governor’s name does not appear on such documents.
Hunting and fishing licenses, driver’s licenses, SUNY diplomas, and most department or agency staff business cards are also exempt.
While many governors put their names on welcome signs for visitors on highway billboards, Spitzer had declined to add his name to New York’s, said Department of Transportation spokesperson Carole Breen. So far, Paterson has followed suit.
Breen also said that Paterson’s office sent a digital picture of the new governor to print out and swap with Spitzer’s, which went into the office recycle bin.
If many agencies and departments said they incurred no extra cost or did not make an extra effort to scrub away vestiges of the Spitzer administration, one exception was the Office of General Services. They had from Wednesday, March 14, when Spitzer announced his resignation, to the next Monday, when Paterson was sworn in, to remove Spitzer signage from 44 state office buildings, at a cost of $2,300, according to OGS spokesperson Brad Maione.
Adjustments are also being made for the signs at the 178 state parks and 35 cultural sites that are managed by the Department of Parks, many of which bore Spitzer’s name. This will mean repainting signs, as well as smaller changes, according to Department spokesperson Eileen Larrabee, who said that new governors and commissioners are often accounted for by simply putting stickers on old brochures.
“It is a matter of course for the agency,” she said.
At the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, a makeshift change now has Paterson’s scrawled on over a brown patch on the orange sign.
Larrabee said she was unfamiliar with that sign, but was not surprised to hear of it.
“Staff has been asked to make changes to reflect Gov. Paterson,” she said. “This sounds like it may be a temporary solution.”
But the transition was not all easy on the bureaucratic front. There was at least one detail to double-check that no one stumbled over before moving on to other state business: making sure no one spelled Paterson with two T’s.