Fred Kreizman

According to two Republican sources, City Hall staffer Fred Kreizman is considering a run for state Senate on their line against Democrat Diane Savino, whose district includes parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Kreizman works in the Community Assistance Unit and has previously taken some time off from work to help Republican state Senate candidate Maureen O'Connell on Long Island, who lost her special election race earlier this year to Democrat Craig Johnson.  read more »

Two City Hall staffers have taken a leave from their jobs at the Community Assistance Unit to work on the campaign of Republican Maureen O'Connell in Nassau, according to a City Hall insider.

The staffers helping O'Connell are Fred Kreizman and Matt Gorton. (Kreizman's cell phone message, when I called, said that he'd be out of the office until February 7, the day after the election.)

Such a loan of Bloomberg personnel is not without recent precedent, especially when the beneficiary is in a position -- as Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno clearly is -- to exercise discretion over funding for the city. When Bloomberg administration staffers went last year to help Senator Joe Lieberman in his hard-fought primary against Ned Lamont, for example, it may well have been something a "thank you" for past and future help with homeland security money.

As my insider source put it, "The mayor is a results-oriented guy."

But the last word here goes to mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser, who said in an email that these two staffers are acting on their own. "The Mayor doesn't send people. If personnel want time off and their supervisors okay it based on the office's workload, they get it. It's an administrative decision that has nothing to do with the Mayor's support of a candidate."

-- Azi Paybarah

Mayor Bloomberg just announced Patrick J. Brennan as the long-awaited replacement to Jonathan Greenspun as head of the Community Asssistance Unit, an office that has taken on renewed importance and prominence since all the demonstrations and hard feelings started in the city's Orthodox community a couple of months ago. After rumors that Terry Tolbert or Fred Kreizman might get the nod, the choice of Brennan seems, in retrospect, like an obvious one.

After all, Brennan has worked as golden boy Kevin Sheakey's Shief of Staff and played a significant role in Bloomberg's reelction campaign as head ofcommunity outreach.

The mayor also picked Christopher Coffey as Deputy Commissioner for Operations, and Fred Kreizman, who in the early stages seemed to be up for the top job, as Assistant Commissioner of Citywide Outreach.

As Ben noted in his column this week, there had been a movement within City Hall to give the position to an African-American. (Thus the early rumors about Tolbert.)

The lesson is probably this: Never underestimate Kevin Sheekey.

—Jason Horowitz

The death of Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum last night raises two immediate questions.

The first was which of the Rabbi's two sons, Aaron or Zalmen, would speak at his funeral, and if both, in what order? That answer could shed light on the battle over succession rights in the Satmar community.

The second question has more of a bearing on the Bloomberg administration. With Greenspun on his way out, who will be the city's liaison to the Satmar community in this tumultuous time? An educated guess might be Fred Kreizman, who, according to one knowledgeable source, was at the Satmar Rebbe's bedside on April 4 before rushing to Borough Park, where he acted as Mr. Greenspun's point man on the ground. Kreizman is also up for a promotion within the CAU. This could be a key time for him.

- Jason Horowitz