Eric Adams just shed one of his most important official, Keechant Sewell, after only 18 months in office. But she’s far from being the only one to step aside on Hizzoner’s watch. Last month, the mayor’s chief housing officer, Jessica Katz, 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 now Sewell will go. She was praised–though at times begrudgingly, for how she handled being the first woman in charge of the NYPD.
Add Seewell to Adams’s first deputy mayor, his chief of staff, and his buildings commissioner, who have all left. And by the end of the summer, Mr. Adams’s chief counsel, communications director and chief efficiency officer also plan to resign.
What is with this Trump-esque turnover? Let’s focus on Sewell for a second.
Police and City Hall officials close to her said she was undermined by Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety and something of a shadow police commissioner.
“It’s been clear for a while that Commissioner Sewell was being boxed in,” said Diana Ayala, the deputy speaker of the City Council to the New York Times. “You have a woman in leadership and you are not allowing her to lead. She stopped going to press conferences a long time ago. She’s perfectly qualified to do her job. Let her do her job.”
“The NYPD created the mayor, the mayor took all his friends with him, and she was not among the chosen,” a source with knowledge said. “It’s hard for an outsider if you’re not from that culture to fit in.”
Deputy Mayor Banks, for his part, said in a text, also to the Times, that any suggestion of meddling was “untruthful gossip.”
This notion of Adams trusting loyalists above his appointees has been a frequent criticism. And if Banks was really a big reason for why she resigned, it will leave the city without a police commissioner right before the summer crime spike. The fact that Sewell’s resignation letter was leaked before City Hall could even announce it was telling. Under Mayor de Blasio, announcements were generally coordinated and officials kept up the facade that the decision was mutual, and the situation cordial even when it clearly was not.
Adams on Tuesday angrily rebuffed the notion that he was facing a staff exodus. He noted that he oversaw more than 300,000 employees, and said that the high-level departures represented just a fraction of the city workforce.
“And we’re saying, is everybody running for the door?” he said. “No, everybody is running to do their job.”
