US News

BUILDING BLOCKHEADS TRIED TO STALL PESKY POST

A spokesman for the head of the agency rebuilding Ground Zero stalled a routine request for the group’s bylaws for weeks – apparently because they raise questions about whether one of Rudy Giuliani’s appointees to the board can continue to serve on it.

Ed Novotny, personal spokesman for Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Chairman John Whitehead, detailed the possible conflict in an e-mail to an agency official.

But Novotny mistakenly directed a copy of his e-mail to the Post reporter who had asked for the bylaws more than two weeks ago.

Novotny noted the Post reporter had requested the group’s bylaws “a couple of times,” saying Whitehead agreed that if “she asked [for them] again, to give them to her.”

The e-mail to the LMDC official suggested Novotny planned to cover up the delay in providing the bylaws.

Novotny said he was receiving a “clean copy” of the bylaws “with the current fax date footprint later this afternoon so it won’t look [to the Post reporter] like we’ve been holding it up.”

The e-mail also said there was an “obvious” issue in the bylaws that could raise questions about whether former deputy mayor Robert Harding should remain on the board.

That’s because the bylaws, which The Post received yesterday afternoon, state that any board member serving “by virtue of holding an official position in New York state or New York City, shall cease automatically to serve as a director . . . upon his or her resignation or removal from such official position.”

The e-mail indicated officials had a response planned.

“[Whitehead] believes that if he is asked, the answer is simple: he wanted the best people on the board and [Harding] was one of them and still is,” Novotny wrote.

Harding was still a deputy mayor when then-Mayor Giuliani appointed him to the LMDC at the end of November, but left his city post when Mayor Bloomberg took office.

Harding said yesterday he was appointed “as an individual,” not as a government official, and that’s why he could continue to serve.

After Novotny laid out his plans for dealing with The Post, he concluded, “Cross your fingers.”

He declined comment yesterday.