US News

PATRONAGE PLUM EYED FOR GOPER

A former Queens Republican councilman is in line to be appointed by Mayor Bloomberg as a $172,311 commissioner at the Housing Authority — considered a prime patronage post — just weeks after the county’s GOP endorsed the mayor’s re-election bid, The Post has learned.

Sources said Anthony Como, ousted from his council seat last year by Democrat Elizabeth Crowley, is the leading contender to succeed Earl Andrews Jr. as one of the authority’s three commissioners.

“I would say it’s one of the best patronage plums in town,” said a former official, expressing a widely held view about the high-paying post with few defined responsibilities.

Andrews’ five-year term expired on Dec. 20, 2006. But he was allowed to stay on pending the naming of a replacement.

Under an antiquated law, no more than two of the HA commissioners can belong to the same political party.

The new chairman, John Rhea, is a Democrat. So is the third member, Margarita Lopez. That left room for a Republican.

Como’s appointment will make life a lot less complicated for Queens GOP leader Phil Ragusa, who repeatedly denounced Bloomberg for abandoning the Republican Party, before suddenly endorsing the mayor’s request to run on the party’s line come November.