A visibly irritated Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday said it was a “sexist belief” that the FDNY’s male-dominated culture had anything to do with the sudden departure of the department’s first woman commissioner Laura Kavanagh.
The mayor chafed at a reporter’s question about whether he gave Kavanagh — who is stepping down after years of clashes with the overwhelming male FDNY rank-and-file — and former NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who were the first women to lead their respective departments, enough support.
“When a man leaves you don’t say, ‘You didn’t give men support,’” Adams said during his weekly news conference.
“If a man wants to go on and do something with his life I have no one asking, ‘Oh, you didn’t give him the support he needed? You didn’t give him the nurturing that he needed?’ But a woman needs that? No, she does not.”
Hizzoner’s ticked-off tirade came after The Post exclusively reported that Kavanagh was pushed out of her job after conflicts with male underlings, including when she apologized to Attorney General Letitia James for failing to “fix” sexist men in her department.
Kavanagh, in a Medium post published Tuesday, said she grappled for months with the decision to leave the FDNY.
Her post doesn’t give a reason for her departure, beyond the all-consuming nature of the job and a desire to spend time with family and friends.
“Leaving is a decision I’ve wrestled with for months because my love for the FDNY is so profound, and for a very long time I’ve been able to overcome my personal hurdles to persist in making it better,” she wrote. “And I wasn’t sure I’d ever find the right time.”
Adams and City Hall officials have maintained Kavanagh could keep the fire boss job as long as she wanted.
Sources told The Post that Adams wants to keep Kavanagh in his administration — a potential he appeared to confirm Tuesday.
“When she’s ready to transition to her next role then she will come in and say, ‘Eric I’m ready to transition to my next role,’” he said. “If that’s outside the administration or inside the administration, that’s fine with me.”
“No date set for the commissioner’s last day yet,” an FDNY spokesperson told The Post Tuesday.
The mayor — who was peppered with reporters’ questions about Kavanagh’s looming departure — defended his record on elevating women to positions of power in his administration, noting they hold five deputy mayor roles and are two of highest-level advisors.
He also maintained that Sewell, his first police commissioner, has a great, well-paid life now working for the New York Mets.
Sewell suddenly resigned in 2023 amid conflicts with powerful men in City Hall, including Adams, and was replaced by Edward Caban, a man.
Two rumored potential replacements for Kavanagh are men, sources told The Post.
Adams, during the news conference, also appeared to undercut his stance that sexism didn’t factor into Kavanagh’s departure.
“Those ‘isms’ that existed for thousands of years won’t dissipate under my administration,” he said. “I’m setting the right tone that we don’t accept those isms to exist, and we use our internal mechanisms to correct them.”
