The lead, front-page news article in today's New York Times reports on problems counting mayoral votes at New York City's board of elections. "For the Board of Elections, which has long been plagued by dysfunction and nepotism, this was its first try at implementing ranked-choice voting on a citywide scale," the story reports.
The nepotism reference is unexplained for print readers, but for online readers there is a hyperlink to an article from October 2020, "Inside Decades of Nepotism and Bungling at the N.Y.C. Elections Board." It reports:
Employees include Beth Fossella, the head of voter registration and mother of a former Republican congressman from Staten Island, Vito J. Fossella; Thomas Sattie, director of ballot management and son of the former Brooklyn Democratic district leader Maryrose Sattie; Pamela Perkins, administrative manager and wife of Democratic City Councilman Bill Perkins; Raphael Savino, deputy general counsel and brother of Joseph Savino, the former Bronx Republican leader; and Daniel Ortiz, deputy clerk in Brooklyn and son of Assemblyman Felix W. Ortiz, a Democrat.
The list of relatives stretches even to the agency's computer programmers, including Rubén Díaz III, a Democrat who is the son of the Bronx borough president and grandson of a City Council member.
From the New York Times Company's 2021 Proxy Statement:
Certain Members of the Ochs-Sulzberger Family Employed by the Company during our 2020 Fiscal Year. A.G. Sulzberger was employed as Publisher of The New York Times during 2020. See "Compensation of Executive Officers" for a description of his compensation. David Perpich, who was employed as head of the Company's standalone products group, was paid $724,077 in 2020 and received a grant under the 2020-2022 long-term performance award program with a target value of $200,000. James Dryfoos, who was employed as executive director, technology compliance, was paid $292,104 in 2020 and received time-vested restricted stock units with a grant date fair value of $5,700. Pamela Dryfoos, who was employed as executive director of finance for the Company's standalone products group, was paid $236,043 in 2020 and received time-vested restricted stock units with a grant date fair value of $5,700. Mr. Dryfoos, Ms. Dryfoos, Mr. Perpich and Mr. Sulzberger are all fifth-generation members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family.
Now, it could be that nepotism at a government agency leads to dysfunction, but nepotism at a newspaper, even one operated by a publicly traded company controlled by a family trust, leads to excellence. Absent some explanation, though, of why nepotism is bad in one place but good in another place, it's hard not to find a bit of humor in a newspaper published by a "fifth-generation member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family" earnestly campaigning against the city Board of Election employing, as a computer programmer, the grandson of a city council member. The computer programmer can't control who his grandparent was. The New York Times makes no assertion that Rubén Díaz III, or the other individuals named, is unqualified for the job or incompetent, or that he was hired over anyone better qualified but without a family connection to city government. Such issues might be worth investigating, but without them, the naming of family connections may seem like a cheap shot. As with many other traits, a family connection can be both a strength and a weakness. The New York Times Company's status as a family business makes it unusually well qualified to investigate problems with nepotism but also subject to accusations about double standards and hypocrisy when pursuing such investigations.