Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani congratulated recipients of the 27th
annual Sloan Public Service Award during a ceremony this evening at
the Great Hall of Cooper Union in Manhattan. Each year the Fund for the City
of New York presents these awards in recognition of the many accomplishments
of municipal employees, whose day-to-day dedication and effectiveness often
go unnoticed.
"The dedication to public service and commitment to the
quality of life of our City that the men and women we honor this evening are
an extraordinary example of the sense of duty of our City employees,"
said Mayor Giuliani. "Without the contributions of these individuals
our City would not be a model of good government to the rest of the nation
and the rest of the world in so many different areas. They represent the best
the City has to offer and I thank them for their commitment to their job,
to the City and to all New Yorkers."
The seven recipients are all career city employees who have
maintained unusually high levels of excellence throughout their careers. Often
working away from the limelight, they exemplify the very spirit of public
service. This year's winners are:
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Michael T. Carpinello, First Deputy Commissioner,
Department of Sanitation, rose from entry-level sanitation worker to become
his agency's top operations manager. In his 36-year career, he has taken
on a wide array of responsibilities, using his leadership and management
skills to improve the department's productivity, efficiency and performance.
He created the Department's first staff forecasting model; brought women
into the uniformed workforce; directed the City's entire daily waste disposal
system; and today, with over 8,000 employees reporting to him, is in charge
of all agency line activities.
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Stephen F. Di Carlo, Principal P.S. 25, Staten
Island, Board of Education, is a leader in creating and implementing innovative
programs that help better the lives of thousands of youngsters who need
special education. Principal DI Carlo, a 30-year public education veteran,
has worked tirelessly for the past 16 years at PS 25, which serves 400
students with a wide range of disabilities, from schizophrenia to blindness.
Managing his many programs at five different sites and involved in all
aspects of his programs, he is esteemed for his special sensitivity and
the attention he gives to children, parents and staff. Through one of
his programs 75 percent of his preschoolers go onto standard school settings.
In another program, teenagers receive academic and vocational training
at community worksites.
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Marcelle Layton, MD., Assistant Commissioner, Communicable
Diseases, Department of Health, in 1999 identified the first-ever cases
in New York City of the rare West Nile virus and mobilized a complex network
of Federal, State and local agencies, as well as the entire Citywide medical
community, to control its spread. She created a much-praised and unprecedented
communications system that reaches New York's vast and complex health
care network to alert its members to public health threats. As head of
the City's Communicable Diseases Program, Dr. Layton is the City's Chief
Medical Detective; she manages a staff that registers as many as 90,000
reports of infectious diseases yearly. She successfully identified and
controlled outbreaks of food poisoning, hepatitis A, and a rare occurrence
of malaria in New York City. Dr. Layton is also a nationally recognized
expert in planning the public health response to the threat of biologic
disasters.
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Richard K Lieberman, Director, La Guardia and Wagner
Archives, La Guardia Community College; Professor of History, La Guardia
Community College and CUNY Graduate Center, a pioneer in the field of
social history, he has gone beyond the academy to present New York history
to the general public. In his 28 years he has created an innovative body
of work that includes radio programs, books, New York history calendars,
local history curricula for public schools, and public programs and exhibitions.
Since 1983, he has built and managed the highly regarded La Guardia and
Wagner Archives, which hold the personal papers of Mayors La Guardia,
Wagner, Beame and Koch as well as the City Council, New York City Housing
Authority and Steinway family collections. It is the only mayoral archive
in the country and is considered one of the best urban archives as well.
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John Valles, Director and Commanding Officer, Parking
Enforcement Division, Police Department and Ana Maria Rhynie, Executive
Officer. Traffic Intelligence Division, Parking Enforcement District,
Police Department, are sometimes seen as a team because of the extraordinary
work they have done together enabling the film industry to produce elaborate
out-of-door scenes requiring complex traffic diversions. But each has
made remarkable individual contributions as well in managing, directing
and controlling traffic daily on New York City's 19,000 miles of paved
streets and roadways. John Valles, who today directs the entire
2,200 civilian uniformed traffic enforcement corps, started as a traffic
enforcement agent in 1972. He has successfully implemented new rush hour
bus lanes and bridge reroutings, managed the Manhattan tow pound, brought
the Department critical new emergency response capabilities, and has frequently
been first on the scene in emergencies, including the World Trade Center
bombing, where for a month, he supervised traffic flow. Ana Maria Rhynie,
who was also a key member of the response team to the World Trade Canter
bombing, began in 1984 as a traffic enforcement agent. By 1993, she was
in charge of Citywide traffic flow strategies for emergencies -- fires,
water main breaks, blackouts, and explosions, frequently putting herself
at risk. Today, her management and leadership skills are used to supervise
500 people while she continues to plan and field implement traffic divisions
for emergencies, special events and film shoots.
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Evelyn "Tessie" Williams, District Manager, Brooklyn
Community Board 2, has served her diverse district -- which includes the
newly revived Downtown Brooklyn, the MetroTech Center, the Navy Yard,
and neighborhoods as distinct as Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Brooklyn
Heights -- for 20 years. Her extensive knowledge of how City government
works, her network of connections and recognized talent for mediating
have helped all sides during local labor disputes, land use controversies,
and job creation programs. Activists, board members, business and cultural
leaders, residents, and City officials laud her consistent, long-term
effectiveness; she has served all with equal attention, energy and fairness.
"These City employees have made concrete, measurable and
important contributions to the quality of life in New York City that deserve
our praise, respect and admiration," said Dr. Mary McCormick, President
of the Fund for the City of New York. "With their unswerving dedication
to excellence, they enrich the lives of all New Yorkers and demonstrate the
highest ideals of public service."
The Public Service Award has been a program of the Fund for
the City of New York for 27 years. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has helped
support the program for the last 15 years. This year's seven award winners
were chosen from more than 250,000 people who work for the City of New York.
Each winner will receive a cash prize of $7,500, as well as an original drawing
by Niculae Asciu depicting the work they each do.
