Mayor Adams Must Break FDNY Diehards Resisting Long-Needed Reforms
David R. Jones, The Urban Agenda
It was only a matter of time before Laura Kavanagh, the New York City Fire Department’s first woman commissioner, would catch hell for simply trying to do her job. Her detractors were bound to put up a fight. Last month, a half-dozen of the FDNY’s most senior command staff took their insolence a step further and stepped down en masse.
The FDNY Neanderthals, the apotheoses of hate, are lashing out because they truly believe the FDNY belongs to them, not NYC taxpayers. In doing so, they’re challenging Mayor Eric Adams’ authority and temperament. They’re throwing down the gauntlet at the city’s second Black mayor, the first being David N. Dinkins, elected in 1989.
The mayor must put them down. He appointed Kavanagh, well aware of the need to confront the overt racism and sexism in the FDNY that made it a bastion of white male privilege for nearly 150 years. At base, the FDNY had a leadership problem, and she brings to the job a mandate and perspective that have never been heretofore represented among those appointed to lead the department.
Adams has the political currency to break up, once and for all, the FDNY’s culture of employment discrimination and firehouse bigotry against Blacks, Latinos, women and gay people that has been all too acceptable. As a former New York City police captain, Adams publicly took on questionable police practices. Unlike Mayor Bill de Blasio’s doublespeak, broken promises and missed opportunities to make lasting change at the FDNY – and the NYPD for that matter – Adams knows his responsibility to stop the FDNY’s shenanigans.
The irony is thick: The lion’s share of firefighters is overwhelming white, live outside of the five boroughs, do not vote in city elections and tend not to have a vested interest in the neighborhoods where they work. Adams was brought to power by voters from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, outside the traditional city power center. The coalition also elected a City Council for the first time that looks like our racially and ethnically diverse boroughs.
Kavanagh has signaled plans to quickly step up the recruiting, hiring and promotion of women and minorities. According to New York City Council figures, 76 percent of uniformed firefighters are white, 13 percent Latinx, eight percent Black and two percent Asian. But already under her brief tenure, Kavanagh has named the first African American Emergency Medical Services chief, the first African American female executive officer, and the first Hispanic chief of staff on the executive team. She’s also credited with helping the City Council pass legislation expected to help improve FDNY’s hiring practices.
Kavanagh’s moves couldn’t happen a moment too soon, after all the protests, promises, lawsuits, consent decrees and settlement payouts by New York City. “Commissioner Kavanagh has my full support. She is promoting a culture of true leadership, accountability, and performance within the FDNY,” Adams said in a statement that needs repeating – often.
Tensions in the FDNY leadership exploded publicly last month, when Kavanagh demoted three recalcitrant senior fire chiefs with no interest in collaborating with her for the good of the FDNY and the city. On Monday, the trio sued to get their jobs back. Among those demoted was the controversial Deputy Chief of Operations Michael Gala, who successfully sued last year to win his promotion after making racially charged remarks about the department’s diversity efforts. Kavanagh then called other top FDNY brass on the carpet in a closed-door meeting, where she demanded more out-of-the-box thinking on policy and management, and fewer inquiries about vacations and take-home city vehicles. The command staff responded by requesting in mass a return to stationhouse duty.
Firefighter union officials floated the ridiculous idea Kavanagh did not have the authority to choose her staff. James McCarthy, an official with the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, had the gall to suggest commanders were almost immune from removal. “Generally, in the fire department you don’t get demoted unless you have criminal charges or if there’s department charges,” McCarthy said in a television interview. “I’m not aware of anybody else that didn’t get charges being demoted.”
Kavanagh has since begun to appoint new commanders, including a retired FDNY 9/11 hero, Joseph Pfeifer, who has rejoined the department as deputy commissioner, Kavanagh’s second in command. His appointment was aimed at countering criticism that the commissioner’s aides have little or no firefighting experience. Pfeifer has 40 years of FDNY experience.
Meanwhile, there’s signs of progress amid the work to be done. Just under half of the new probationary firefighter class are people of color. They identify as 28 percent Hispanic, 15 percent Black, and four percent Asian American. There are seven women in the class, which brings the total number of female Firefighters to 148 – the most in FDNY history.
We can do even better. Mayor Adams and Commissioner Kavanagh can make it so.