NYC COMPTROLLER | Eric Wollman of FOCEA

Eric Wollman
Not an ol' man.
On way to Delray
Via A1A.
Clerihew by JT Marlin;
Eric is dubious.

January 31, 2016–I am down in Florida for a few weeks and had the pleasure of a visit today from Eric Wollman, Esq., on the road, traveling from a convention in Titusville, Fla. to see a relative in Delray Beach. Our location is en route, if you go the scenic route on  A1A.

That's Eric on the left, in front of where we are staying. He drives the activities of the Former Office-of-the-Comptroller Employees Association (FOCEA). The Comptroller in this case is the Comptroller of the City of New York.

As the holder of the CEO spot and (so far as I was able to elucidate) every other office at FOCEA, Eric's responsibilities are to notify former employees of the Comptroller's Office when retirement parties are happening.

FOCEA operates on the motto: "No dues, no rules, no meetings." You could count retirement parties as meetings, but FOCEA adheres rigorously to its announced mission by restricting itself to publicizing these meetings, not organizing them.

Eric and your Blogger. Selfie by JT Marlin.

I have occasionally posted on the activities of the Comptroller, where I worked in 1992-2006 as Chief Economist (and for a time Senior Policy Adviser) to three elected Comptrollers–Liz Holtzman, Alan Hevesi and Bill Thompson, who served concurrently with Mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg.

On length of service, Eric has me beat by a wide margin because he was an attorney in the Comptroller's Office before I arrived, working for Jay Goldin, who was Comptroller when the late Ed Koch was Mayor; Goldin is still alive and active, and still sends a card with a holiday poem every December. After I left the Comptroller's Office, Eric has worked under John Liu and now Scott Stringer.

Here is a list of all these NYC Mayors, #105 to #109, because sometimes I forget some of the dates and maybe you do too. The terms of the Comptrollers were coterminous with the Mayors except for Michael Bloomberg, who had Bill Thompson as Comptroller for his first two terms and John Liu as Comptroller for his third term.

105		1977 12 Years	The late Ed Koch January 1, 1978 – December 31, 1989 Comptroller: Jay Goldin		Democratic
106		1989 4 Years	David Dinkins January 1, 1990 – December 31, 1993 Comptroller: Liz Holtzman		Democratic
107		1993 8 Years	Rudy Giuliani January 1, 1994 – December 31, 2001 Comptroller: Alan Hevesi		Republican
108		2001 12  Years	Michael Bloomberg January 1, 2002 – December 31, 2013; Comptrollers: Bill Thompson and John Liu		Republican (until 2007)8
					Independent (from 2007)
109		2013 2 Years so far	Bill de Blasio January 1, 2014 – Present Comptroller: Scott Stringer		Democratic

Postscript:  Eric contacted me to say that all this is true, but his civil service career goes back even further, to the administration of NYC Mayor #103, John Lindsay, under whom he took his civil service exam. He was then "picked up"–hired off the list of successful exam-takers–under Mayor #104, Abe Beame. He first worked for the Department of Finance starting in 1970 and then moved over to the NYC Comptroller's Office in 1974 under Comptroller Goldin; he was hired by Steve Newman.

See also (more posts in preparation; click on number):
Holtzman Era 1
Holtzman-Hevesi Era 1
Hevesi Era
Hevesi-Thompson Era
Thompson Era