EXCLUSIVE
ALBANY – Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has asked former Mayor Giuliani to make changes to the Twin Towers Fund, including adding a city appointee to the charity’s board, The Post has learned.
Spitzer also wants Giuliani to subject the fund, which has recently come under criticism, to annual audits by the city Comptroller’s Office and the Department of Investigation.
The attorney general made his concerns known in a letter last week to city officials and Giuliani after a planned meeting was canceled to accommodate the former mayor’s trip to England.
“We’d like the city to have a representative on the board because a mayoral-controlled organization is currently in charge of the charity and the city was the entity raising the funds,” Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said.
The proposed transfer of the Twin Towers to Giuliani’s control has come under fire from some firefighters and victims’ families since The Post reported last month that Giuliani packed his new board with friends, former employees and supporters, including girlfriend Judith Nathan and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Post also reported the former mayor plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on staff to administer the fund, including up to $250,000 for former Giuliani deputy counsel Larry Levy to run it. To date, Dopp said, no ultimatum has been given to Giuliani.
“We expect to work with him to resolve this,” he said. “We don’t regard our concerns as unusual.”
Spitzer must give his OK to the transfer of the fund before a state judge makes a final ruling on it.
Twin Towers Fund spokesman Jonathan Prince said, “In principle, we have no problem” with Spitzer’s requests.
Meanwhile, Dopp said Spitzer’s aides plan to meet soon with critics of the proposed transfer.
“It’s possible that after meeting with them we will raise additional concerns with the mayor,” said Dopp, who previously insisted the criticism was not enough to quell the transfer.
Giuliani wants to take over control from the city of the fund he started as mayor for the families of uniformed rescue personnel who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Before the fund stopped doling out money while the transfer is under consideration, $49 million of ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^the more than $150 million raised had been dispersed.