After Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh demoted three FDNY chiefs over the weekend, two of the department’s top uniformed officials gave up their own positions in protest, the Daily News has learned.
The turmoil in the highest levels of the Fire Department began when Kavanagh demoted Assistant Chiefs Fred Schaaf, Michael Gala and Joseph Jardin to deputy chief, and then called other top chiefs on the carpet, multiple source told The News.
Outraged FDNY Chief of Department John “Jack” Hodgens, the most senior uniformed official in the agency, voluntarily stepped down from his post in protest of Kavanagh’s move, with Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito following suit, the sources said.
Both men technically remain in their posts but will return to their civil service rank of deputy chief. They asked to be placed in their prior units. Kavanagh was “disappointed” by their decision, hoping they would reconsider and not just throw it away “for a few bad apples,” sources said.
“We do not comment on personnel moves,” FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer said Monday.
Kavanagh demoted the three chiefs after weeks of bringing her problems with them to Hodgens and Esposito, who didn’t take action, according to a source with knowledge of the move.
She ordered the demotions Friday and then called in the department’s 20 appointed chiefs. She said she’d become frustrated in recent weeks because the chiefs had been pestering her for promotions and personal cars, according to department sources.
But she said she hadn’t heard much from them about more pressing problems like the spike in fire deaths in the Bronx and a pending critical situation around the purchase of new air respirators for firefighters.
“She challenged them to stop focusing on their own perks and careers and focus on the people of this city, which is what they had originally signed on for,” said one source familiar with the meeting. “It was a call to action.”
Kavanagh did not do the demotions…
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