FDNY Deputy Commissioner Laura Kavanagh introduced she's going to lead the division on an interim foundation as Mayor Eric Adams decides on a everlasting head.
Richard Harbus for NY Put up
The FDNY’s high feminine official can be taking on because the division’s performing commissioner whereas Mayor Adams mulls who to faucet as its everlasting boss.
First Deputy Commissioner Laura Kavanagh introduced at a current FDNY chiefs assembly that she's going to lead the division on an interim foundation when Commissioner Daniel Nigro retires on Wednesday, sources mentioned.
Kavanagh, 39, a former high aide to ex-Mayor Invoice de Blasio, joined the FDNY practically eight years in the past. She additionally beforehand labored as senior director for de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral marketing campaign and as a deputy state director for Barack Obama’s presidential marketing campaign, in accordance with her LinkedIn web page.
Kavanagh, who has often crammed in for Nigro when he was out of city, is among the many high contenders for the commissioner submit together with the FDNY’s high lawyer, Terryl Brown, sources mentioned.
If both Kavanagh or Brown will get the job, they'd make historical past as the primary feminine to guide the FDNY since its inception in 1865.
A scarcity of a everlasting chief for the nation’s largest fireplace division is creating uncertainty at a tumultuous time.
The division is going through the termination of lots of of firefighters and different emergency personnel who've refused to adjust to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Fabien Levy, an Adams spokesman, insisted the mayor “is endeavor an intensive evaluate of all candidates for the essential place of fireside commissioner.”
“He’s already performed 20 rounds of interviews and narrowed down his listing to a few people,” he added. “As with all different appointments within the administration, Mayor Adams will decide one of the best individual for the job.”
Nigro appointed Kavanagh his second-in-command in October 2017. Town credit her with spearheading a firefighter recruitment marketing campaign to spice up the hiring of minorities and ladies. She additionally created a fire-safety program that distributed smoke alarms in at-risk neighborhoods
Kavanagh, whose wage is $242,767, joined the FDNY as an assistant commissioner for exterior affairs.
Her tenure has included some controversy.
In 2018, then-Chief of Division James Leonard was ousted after Kavanagh’s repeated complaints to Nigro that Leonard was verbally abusive and “misogynistic.”
In 2019, she helped an FDNY lieutenant land an unadvertised $219,000-a-year job as deputy commissioner within the Division of Data and Expertise, then rapidly swap to the FDNY with the identical wage.
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