Albany is in an uproar over ethics and integrity — two qualities notably lacking in the capital city.
State Inspector General Joseph Fisch issued a scathing 174-page report Wednesday demanding the immediate firing of Herbert Teitelbaum, executive director of the misnamed state Public Integrity Commission.
And he strongly hinted that Robert Hermann, a one-time top gubernatorial aide, should be let go by his current boss, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith.
Gov. Paterson promptly called on all PIC members to quit; they ignored him.
Whereupon the toothless governor said he’d be “happy to sit down and talk.”
And there New York stands: leaderless in Albany.
In this case, however, the problem is that Paterson didn’t go far enough: He should scrap the PIC entirely.
Fisch’s report confirmed the allegations, first reported by The Post, that Teitelbaum illegally leaked information on the PIC’s Troopergate probe to Hermann, then a top aide to ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Fisch also alleged that former commission chairman John Feerick accepted Teitelbaum’s denials of wrongdoing, “inexcusably” ignoring warnings that he wasn’t telling the truth.
According to Fisch, Teitelbaum repeatedly told Hermann, his close friend, the details of the probe into how Spitzer & Co. used the State Police to spy on then-Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.
Hermann then allegedly relayed the information to the governor and his aides.
But yesterday the commissioners denied that Teitelbaum leaked anything to Hermann, adding that even if he did, there was nothing wrong with it.
What a mess.
Paterson wants to turn things around by naming Michael Cherkasky, a respected former top Manhattan prosecutor, as chairman. He has solid credentials, but he’s also a Spitzer acolyte.
Actually, the problem is the commission itself — it’s beholden to the governor, who appoints most of its members.
And that becomes a real problem when the governor himself is under investigation — as Spitzer was in Troopergate, and as Paterson now is, as the PIC is set to probe the leak of derogatory information on Caroline Kennedy.
Albany is in desperate need of a serious and independent ethics watchdog. The Commission on Public Integrity, sad to say, simply isn’t it.