Important Judiciary Committee Meeting Monday, 19th Dec., 2011

ATTENTION: 2nd MEETING OF THE COUNTY JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

The New York County Regular Democratic Organization's Judiciary Committee meets Monday, 19th December, 2011, at 6:15 P.M. at the County office located at :

108 West 39th Street - Room 1201
(West off 6th Avenue), Manhattan

The committee will finalize the seting up a screening panel to select candidates for New York County Civil Court vacancies next year, 2012. This meeting is open to the public under Democratic Party rules. All individuals who may be interested should attend.
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The next meeting of the Judiciary Committee will be this Monday, December 19th, 6:15 PM, at the County H.Q., 108 West 39th St., 12th floor.

Agenda:

1) Finalization of groups for the Civil and Surrogate Panels

There will be one panel. The usual kinds of groups' designees will screen for both Civil and Surrogate Court. We will invite four or so additional groups which specialize in Surrogate Court matters. Their designees will screen only the Surrogate candidates. George Lucas will soon e-mail the Committee a list of the proposed groups. Please e-mail your comments and suggestions. We will vote on the groups Monday, using this list as a base. George will also include our latest information about the names of the heads of each organization. If you have better or more updated information, please send it to George.

2) Interview/Selection of Civil/Surrogate Panel Administrator

We hope to have candidate(s) to interview Monday. If you know of anyone, let Jeanine, Bob Levinsohn, and me know about it.

Other News and Information:

1) Timing and Calendar:

It is of the utmost urgency that we get our panel functioning early in the new year. That is because NY has been ordered to move its primary up from the traditional September date to enable military voters to get their ballots on time. No one knows for sure, but the most likely date for the primary is some time in the middle of June. That would mean that petitioning could start as early as March 6th, which would mean that the panel report would have to be issued by February 22nd at the latest. The panel would therefore have to begin meeting by January 17, which would still give it two-three weeks less time to complete its work than it usually has. To get the panel going by January 13th, we need to get out the letters to the invited groups by next week. That is why we must meet early next week, and we don't have the luxury of working around holiday parties and other functions.

2) Slots to be Filled:

There is one vacancy for Surrogate; Kristin Glen will reach the mandatory retirement age next year. There is one countywide Civil Court vacancy, caused by Ellen Gesmer's ascension to the Supreme Court. There is a vacancy in the 3rd District, caused by Diane Lebedeff's resignation. The 3rd District Leaders have indicated they want to use the County Panel to screen for this vacancy. There is both a vacancy (Analisa Torres moves up to Supreme Court) and an incumbent (Arthur Engoron) in the 6th District, but there the District Leaders want to create their own panel. There are incumbents in the 2nd (Debra Samuels) and 8th (Kibbie Payne) where it is expected but not yet confirmed that the County panel will do the screening.

Hope to see you at this important meeting

Curtis Arluck, Chair, Judiciary Committee