Ex-Fire Commissioner Eyed for New York's Office of Emergency Management Director Position

February 19, 2004 -- A former fire commissioner in the Koch administration is in line to become the next director of Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Emergency Management.

Sources said Joseph Bruno, now a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, is the top contender for the job last held by John Odermatt.

Reached in his chambers yesterday, Bruno declined comment. Bruno, who is not related to the state Senate majority leader of the same name, knows firsthand how tricky it can be to coordinate emergency responses by competing agencies.

While serving as fire commissioner in May 1988, Bruno was summoned to City Hall to make peace with then-Police Commissioner Ben Ward after cops and firefighters clashed at a helicopter crash rescue scene.

With reporters looking on, then-Mayor Ed Koch proclaimed that a settlement had been reached - only to find that Bruno and Ward were still at each other's throats.

Tensions boiled over when Bruno proclaimed that the Fire Department's divers were as good as the NYPD's and "in some ways they have better expertise."