IN 18 YEARS at the helm, Lynne Abraham has been an able administrator, a relentless crime fighter and a passionate advocate for victims. Her successor must be smart enough to adopt her best practices while coming up with new methods to deal with problems that we can't resolve with traditional approaches.

Seth Williams is our clear choice for district attorney.

He would build on the strong working relationships among the D.A., the police and the U.S. Attorney's Office. And he won't be hampered by the friction that sometimes exists between Abraham and criminal-court judges.

Williams' 10 years of experience as a prosecutor and administrator in the D.A.'s office is invaluable. His experience as city inspector general should lead to a more vigorous approach to prosecuting municipal corruption than during Abraham's tenure.

CHARGED WITH investigating how efficiently taxpayer money is spent, the office of controller is among the most critical in the city.

We need a controller who is independent enough of the system to challenge it, but is familiar enough with the system to change it.

Our endorsement goes to Alan Butkovitz.

We've had our beefs with Butkovitz in the past, but his "gotcha" reports have decreased, and over the last year, he has focused more on the job at hand. And he offers compelling testimony for why he should continue in the job.

Butkovitz is smart, and not afraid to be unpopular.

Those are important strengths, and they could raise his game even higher if he better communicated his rationale for selecting departments for audits and got aggressive about finding money for more audits and reviews. *