C  o n f i d e n t i a l o r n e r   "Down To You" Premiere Lucy Arnez & daughter, Freddie Prinze, Henry Winkler, and Julia Stiles. Photos by Steve Azzara

110 Livingston St.

Interim Schools Chancellor Harold Levy has started pounding the pavement to get to know his subordinates. He’s already won some accolades from his coworkers at 110 Livingston Street.

Sources tell us that Levy immediately informed school safety agents that people should be
allowed to walk out of the front door of 110 Livingston Street once again. Under his predecessor’s rules, anyone who entered the
Board of Ed. headquarters had to leave from a side door during the day. But Levy disagrees. "He said he wanted this to be a real office building," said
one Board insider.

That doesn’t mean custodians are too happy. "They are in a huff and puff because they feel they should run the building."

The board insider said that Levy also wanted to do away with the airport-style metal detectors, because he believed the place looked like an armed camp. However, Bd. Prez Bill Thompson nixed the idea – mainly because many "weapons" have been seized as a result of them.

Corrections Seem
To Be Needed

The City worker most likely to crash a car into you is a drunk corrections officer with one or more license infractions, according to a municipal motoring audit by City Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

Accidents involving City workers in City vehicles are way down thanks to a 1996 Hevesi audit that found 690 employees improperly authorized to drive.

Audited agencies took the keys away from those workers or forced them to get valid licenses — except for the Department of Cultural Affairs, which still allows any worker behind the wheel.

But the most uncooperative agency of all was the Department of Corrections, which tried to stonewall Hevesi’s ‘96 audit, and wouldn’t give him any info for the current one, either.

But the DOC soon learned Hevesi is harder to
stop than an unlicensed City worker in a speeding truck.

The Comptroller got a DOC job responsibility statement from the Dept. of Administrative Services, stating all DOC workers must be
licensed to drive, and took the names of every
DOC worker from the city’s payroll listings.

Hevesi found that a full 30 percent of the DOC’s 10,836 workers lack a valid license. And that’s not all — the Comptroller’s report found the DOC had a greater number of bad drivers than the 30 other audited agencies, among them:

• 29 with DWIs.

• 162 with restricted licenses.

• 54 with seven or more license points.

• 133 with two or more suspensions.

• 1,285 having accidents.

• 136 having revocations.

• 768 had more than one of the above infractions.

Sometimes you can’t tell the guards from the inmates!

Anonymous, Not

Journalist Joe Klein (also known as
"Anonymous") apparently wants to do for Senators John McCain and Robert Kerrey what he did for President Bill Clinton in his best-selling 1996 tell-all novel "Primary Colors."

Klein, a former Newsweek reporter who now writes for The New Yorker, has finished a new novel called "The Running Mate" set for publication in April, reports our sister paper in Washington, The Hill.

The book’s leading character is a Vietnam War hero who bears a close resemblance to both Kerrey and McCain. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Klein, who’s getting more than $1 million from Dial Press, has been covering McCain’s campaign for The New Yorker since last year.

Black Power?

In Manhattan, Beep C. Virginia Fields is keeping one eye on her Boro Presidency and another on a run for City Comptroller. Is this a strategic move or a play for tops in the African-American community?

Historically, the Black community has been divided between power bases in Harlem and Brooklyn. Congressional dean Charlie Rangel and Manhattan Dem leader Denny Farrel have opposed any attempt for a Black Brooklyn leader to emerge as a Citywide candidate. The 2001 election, however, will see Board of Ed. Prez Bill Thompson go for Comptroller against Brooklyn’s Herb Berman and others. Kings County Dem Chief Clarence Norman is pushing for Thompson. To counter this move, we hear that Rangel and Farrel have asked C. Virginia to consider a run for the same seat.

However, this complicates the power balance in Manhattan where the Beepship has been held by a black since David Dinkins replaced Andy Stein. The thinking goes that if Fields waits until her term is up in 2005, there will not be an available Citywide position to run for.

If she vacates the seat you can bet that current candidates like Assemblyman Scott Stringer will make a run for the Beep slot. He is currently seeking the office of Public Advocate but would likely jump at the opportunity to take the empty Beep slot.

Rocker Resolution

Things just keep getting worse for Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker. The furor over disparaging remarks he made about New Yorkers in a recent Sports Illustrated article has now made its way to the City Council.

Several Council members have introduced a resolution to officially condemn Rocker, while also urging Major League Baseball and the Atlanta Braves to punish the pitcher for his controversial comments.

However, a vote on the legislation was temporarily blocked by Republican City Councilman Thomas Ognibene of Queens, who objected to any request for the Atlanta hurler’s punishment. Ognibene is still smarting from the Council’s rebuff of his resolution to chastise the Brooklyn Museum for exhibiting a controversial portrait of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and maintains that it would be hypocritical for the Council to pass one resolution and not the other.

Since the vote for a new resolution requires unanimous consent, the matter has been remanded to the Parks Committee which also reviews questions of intergroup relations. If the committee, which is chaired by Councilman Wendell Foster of the Bronx, finds the resolution has merit they can recommend it for a full vote by the Council.

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NYConfidential by Michael Schenkler with: Tom Allon, Steve Azzara, Peter Catapano, Ira Cohen, Richard Fasanella, Tamara Hartman, Barbara Jarvie, Evan Kapitansky, Stephen McGuire, Mike Nussbaum, Mary Reinholtz, and Dee Richard.