The departure of the NY police chief is the latest in the exodus from the Adams administration
After less than 18 months in office, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has lost one top official after another from his administration, a troubling and unusual exodus as the city faces multiple major challenges.
Last month, Jessica Katz, the mayor’s chief of housing, announced her resignation, leaving the city without the architect of its housing agenda. In February, the city’s social services commissioner, Gary Jenkins, resigned. And on Monday, the city’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, blindsided Mr. Adams with her resignation.
Their departure has hit the Adams administration in areas where the city faces its most pressing concerns: crime, housing and homelessness.
They are hardly alone. Mr. Adams has already lost his first deputy mayor, his chief of staff and his buildings commissioner. And by the end of the summer, the chief counsel, communications director and chief efficiency officer of Mr. Adams intends to resign.
While their reasons for leaving vary, police and city officials close to Ms. Sewell said she was undermined by Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety, who some say was acting as a shadow police commissioner.
“It has been clear for some time that Commissioner Sewell was framed,” said Diana Ayala, deputy chair of the city council. “You have a woman in charge and you do not allow her to lead. She stopped going to press conferences a long time ago. She is perfectly qualified to do her job. Let her do her job.”
The overwhelming number of firings — usually not until much later in a mayor’s first term — reinforces the idea that Mr. Adams trusts few people outside of a close circle of loyalists who serve as deputy mayors and senior advisers.
The loss of veteran government hands threatens to amplify that dynamic, making the mayor’s staunch supporters even stronger at a time when the city faces a slew of challenges: a housing crisis, a potentially impending crash of commercial real estate, intensification of the federal oversight of the prisons, record levels of homelessness, an influx of asylum seekers from the southern border and the arrival of summer, which usually brings more violence.
Mr Adams on Tuesday angrily refuted the idea that he was dealing with a staff exodus, accusing the media that reported him of living in a narrative ‘bubble’. He noted that he oversaw more than 300,000 employees, and that the high-level workers leaving represent only a fraction of the city’s workforce.
“And we say, is everyone running to the door?” he said. “No, everyone runs to do their job.”
Ms Sewell, reached by telephone on Tuesday afternoon, declined to comment on her departure.
Deputy Mayor Banks said in a text that any suggestion of interference was “untrue gossip” and to call him for comment “if you get a quote from Commissioner Sewell.”
Max Young, the mayor’s communications director, who is due to step down this summer, attributed the wave of departures to the unusually stressful nature of government work today.
“This is an unprecedented moment in New York history and we must recognize that everyone working in the public service is under tremendous pressure to manage countless crises,” said Mr. Young. “People will leave, but one thing will remain the same: our commitment to addressing the crises we inherited, changing this city and improving the lives of all New Yorkers.”
The rooms are not without precedent. In 1979, a year and a half into his first term as mayor, Ed Koch decided that the structure of his administration was impractical and abolished four positions of deputy mayors.
But that analogy only goes so far.
“That was sudden and abrupt,” recalled George Arzt, then City Hall chief of The New York Post, who joined the Koch administration in his third term. “This is just a slow infusion as one high-ranking official follows another.”
Mr. Adams has long held loyalty in high esteem. He kept allies close as he climbed through New York City politics to the top job. Ingrid Lewis-Martin, perhaps his closest associate, worked for Mr. Adams when he was a senator and president of the Brooklyn borough, and is known to be very protective. His transportation commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez, is a political ally who campaigned for Mr. Adams and one of his rivals.
His education department is run by David Banks, brother of Philip Banks. His new first deputy mayor is Sheena Wright, David Banks’ fiancé.
The hiring of the mayor’s brother, Bernard Adams, to oversee his safety also caused alarm among government watchdogs. His brother eventually took over the position at a salary of $1 and stepped down in February. Bernard Adams’ wife, Sharon Adams, was hired the following month as a “strategic initiative specialist” in the education department with a salary of $150,000, the News channel The City reported this this month.
Outsiders have sometimes traveled a more difficult path.
Mrs. Katz, the city’s housing chief, had served on the city council for ten years and was widely respected for her work on housing, but she was not an Adams loyalist. She decided to resign after becoming frustrated with the mayor’s opposition to city council legislation that would have made it easier for people to leave homeless shelters for more stable housing.
At least two top officials left the Adams administration after investigations. Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins was under investigation for his response to homeless families seeking shelter; that investigation is believed to be ongoing. Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich resigned in November after being questioned by prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, who are investigating him for possible ties to organized crime and illegal gambling.
Mr Jenkins said on Tuesday that high-profile city government jobs are stressful and that each officer must decide what is best for them. Mr. Jenkins is now managing director at a consulting firm run by another former student of the Adams administration: Frank Carone, the mayor’s former chief of staff who left in December.
“Every administration has its ebb and flow,” he said. “A year is a dog year in an administration. I served in government for 36 years – I wanted to move on and try something new.
In Ms. Sewell’s case, she was an outsider in charge of a department that was central to Mr. Adams’ agenda: reducing crime in a post-pandemic New York City.
As a former police chief, Mr. Adams assumed that only he had the requisite experience to quell disorder. And he’s had some success on that front, with this year seeing double-digit declines in shootings and murders.
Bill de Blasio, Mr. Adams’ predecessor, compared Mr. Adams’s intense focus on crime to his own emphasis on universal kindergarten, an area in which he had experience as a former public school parent and school board member. In that context, Mr. De Blasio said, it made perfect sense for Mr. Adams to keep a close eye on the police.
“He clearly has real expertise as a former officer,” Mr. de Blasio said. “He walked out on the issue. It was the issue he owned during the campaign and ever since. And crime has gone down. The result is what matters.”
Despite widespread expectations that Mrs. Sewell would not last long in a role that seemed untenable, Mr. Adams was surprised by the timing of Mrs. Sewell’s departure.
At a Monday press conference on safe streets, Mr Adams praised Ms Sewell and gave no indication that her resignation was imminent. Hours later, Mrs. Sewell walked into City Hall, a meeting closely followed by an email she sent announcing her resignation. She made no mention of Mr. Adams.
The fact that Ms. Sewell’s letter of resignation leaked before City Hall could announce it was striking. Under Mr. de Blasio, announcements, even in tense departures, were generally coordinated and officials kept up the facade that the decision was mutual and the situation cordial.
Mr Adams admitted on Tuesday that he could be a heavy-handed manager. He remembered how his mother used to tell him, “If you don’t inspect what you expect, it’s all suspicious.”
“Some people might call that a micromanager,” he said. “I call it being the mayor of a city you love.”