Municipal Auto Hog: Corrections Commissioner Anthony Schembri

Corrections Commissioner Anthony Schembri has not one, but THREE city cars assigned to him, The Daily News reports that the latest is a $18,898 Mercury Grand Marquis, which Schembri requested just one month after starting in his position. How wonderful to see city commissioners who have their priorities in order. In the memo requesting the new car, Schembri, who oversees the city's jail system, had the audacity to suggest that the new Marquis was "nondescript," and therefore qualified as a security measure.

In addition, Schembri has beefed up security patrols around his downtown Manhattan office, which is nowhere near any of the city's jails. Apparently the primary purpose of these "security" patrols is to protect Corrections Department and courthouse cars from vandals, and to protect parking spaces from non-Corrections Department motorists. Maybe his next project will be to liberate sidewalks and crosswalks from those tyrannical pedestrians who get in his way while driving three cars. What is most appalling is that the "reinventer" of NYC government, Mayor Giuliani, allows this selfish motorhead to get away with this, and that the $19,000 new car request was ever approved.

Write our Mayor at City Hall, NYC 10007 and ask him why the city's capital contribution to the subways keeps getting cut but the Corrections Commissioner gets to use city funds to buy his third city-owned car.

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