Sweet Sorrow

This week brings news that Raye Barbieri is leaving the Center for Court Innovation to join the Bloomberg administration as Deputy Commissioner at the Administration for Children's Services.   At ACS, Raye will help oversee the implementation of Close to Home, a major new juvenile justice initiative that moves much of the responsibility for young people in placement from the State to the City.

Raye is not the first person to leave the Center of course.  Our alums can be found in an array of important  positions, including leading national campaigns against guns (John Feinblatt), overseeing criminal justice policy for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (Liz Glazer),  overseeing city planning for Mayor Bloomberg (Amanda Burden), running successful consulting firms (Eric Lee), etc.  (I'm just scratching the surface here -- maybe this will motivate me to do another one of my infrequent alumni round-ups.)

While I feel no small amount of pride in all of these success stories, the truth of the matter is that if I had my druthers all of these people would still be at the Center.  I feel the same way about Raye.  Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of impact she makes in city government.