FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh mocked when department shocked by demotion drama

Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh was ridiculed by a small crowd of firefighters at a promotion ceremony in Brooklyn on Tuesday as the FDNY continues to reel from a reshuffling of its top ranks.

– Quiet, gentlemen! FDNY Captain Andrew Brown sternly spoke from the podium, ending an impromptu protest at the Christian Cultural Center in East New York, where several dozen firefighters were promoted to officer ranks.

“[Capt. Brown] had to be the father in the room and tried to get everyone under control,” said one senior FDNY member who watched the ceremony.

FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh

A handful of cheers came a day after the Daily News reported that Section Chief John “Jack” Hodgens, the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the FDNY, and Fire Chief John Esposito resigned in solidarity with the three chiefs Kavanagh demoted. in office on Friday. .

Other chiefs were expected to relinquish their titles in solidarity with assistant chiefs Fred Schaaf, Michael Gala and Joseph Jardine, whom Kavanagh demoted to deputy chief, multiple sources told The News.

Hodgins received massive applause from those in attendance as he sat next to Kavanagh, the department’s first female fire commissioner, on the platform on Tuesday.

Wide applause, in which Kavanagh also participated, lasted almost 90 seconds.

Hodgens stuck to his role as section chief throughout the ceremony and posed for pictures with Kavanagh and assigned officers, but did not give a speech as he had done in the past, according to an insider familiar with the leadership saga.

Several senior fire chiefs skipped the ceremony, opting to go to the FDNY firefighter’s funeral instead.

“Many employees who don’t normally come in for promotions are suddenly there to fill the platform,” the insider said.

On Monday, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks urged Hodgens and Esposito to reconsider their resignations and “negotiate their return,” but the two chiefs did not back down from their decision, an insider said.

“They closed in, all three of them,” the former FDNY employee said of the Kavanagh-Hodgins-Esposito drama. She can’t light them. They can’t stay and ask Banks to tell Cavanagh to be nice to them. This is an unacceptable situation.”

After the promotion ceremony, Kavanagh said both chiefs remained in their posts on Tuesday.

“Now they are the head of the department and the head of the operations department,” Kavanagh said. “It’s perfectly acceptable to me if they don’t want to [stay]and we will have this conversation.

“Whatever they decide to do, I respect their opinion,” she added.

But the union representing the FDNY officers said the face-off began primarily due to a lack of communications.

“This was not a one-time incident,” said James McCarthy, president of the FDNY Uniformed Fire Officers Association. “This is an ongoing issue with communications, transparency and inclusion in the leadership of the fire department. Leaders feel excluded from [Kavanagh’s] decisions and things are decided without their participation.

The commander of the FDNY battalion, who asked not to be named, believes that the essence of the tension is that the highest ranks do not really know Kavanagh.

“Everyone walks on eggshells because of Cavanagh. She is not to be trusted,” the chief said. “This happened to [former Fire Commissioners Howard] Safir and [Nicholas] Scoppetta. It’s a tight circle, and when an outsider shows up, he can’t be trusted.”

The UFOA was one of the first unions to support Mayor Adams’s run for city hall. But they never supported Kavanagh, even when she was acting fire commissioner, an FDNY insider said.

“The union gave Adams a list of proposals for the post of fire commissioner, and Laura Kavanagh was not on the list,” he said. “After all the searching, [Adams] settled in Cavan. The union told him they would try to work with her, but there was some resentment. There was a reason she wasn’t on the list.

In her speech at the promotion ceremony, Kavanagh focused on resolving the ongoing conflict: everyone should put aside their differences and focus on the firefighters, which is their mandate.

“Management at the FDNY is simple,” she told officers getting promoted. “If you wake up every day and ask: “Did I do for the congregation in the field today what they needed? Have I thought about them? and you will never fail. We work for them. That’s why we’re here.”

And despite the drama, the FDNY will remain a family, Kavanagh insisted.

“Family is the secret to our success,” she said. “Families fight, but a family is a family.”

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