Politics on the Hudson

Governor Eliot Spitzer today made his nominations for health commissioner and Commissioner of the
Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.

The health nominee, Richard F. Daines, is President and Chief Executive Officer of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City. He previously served in a series of clinical and administrative positions at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, and chaired the Health, Education and Human Services Task Force for Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer from 1998 to 1999.

The other nominee, Diana Jones Ritter, has worked for the state comptroller’s office since 1993, and has served as executive deputy comptroller since 2003. She also was the Associate Commissioner of Administration and Quality Executive in the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities from 1990 to 1993.

Both would earn annual salaries of $136,000.