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What happens when someone with no experience is appointed to a top job? We can look to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for one. His lack of experience in a top cabinet position has embarrassed a nation. Boeing planes continue to mysteriously fail, many with the same point of origin. Buttigieg's response? Crickets.
What about the most vaunted fire department in the nation, and perhaps the world? Surely the storied and celebrated FDNY is run by a veteran fire chief. Surely he is a burly, serious man loved by the rank and file of New York's Bravest, with many personal connections to 9/11.
But no. For the 34th Fire Commissioner of the FDNY, Mayor Eric Adams appointed then-40 year old Laura Kavanagh, a community activist who has never been a firefighter.
It would stand to reason that Kavanagh had a great deal of experience with the FDNY. After all, the department is the largest in the country, with 17,000 employees and a $2 billion budget. In fact, Kavanagh's career consists of working for the political campaigns of another NYC mayor, Bill DeBlasio, and a fellow community activist, one Barack Obama.
Her time at the FDNY consists of administrative posts such as Director of External Affairs, Assistant Commissioner for External Affairs, and Deputy Commissioner for Government Affairs and Special Programs. She was quickly moved up the ladder, serving as First Deputy Commissioner in 2017 and then acting Fire Commissioner in February of 2022.
Unsurprisingly, Kavanagh's rapid rise to the top was met with derision within the FDNY ranks. Kavanagh is not only the first woman to helm the department, but the youngest as well. Several prominent fire chiefs--all of who were demoted by Kavanagh--brought a lawsuit against her in March of 2023.
From The Daily News:
Assistant Fire Chiefs Michael Gala, 62, Joseph Jardin, 61, Michael Massucci, 59, Frank Leeb, 54, retired EMS Chief James Booth, 59, and EMS Computer Aided Dispatch Programming Manager and Deputy Director Carla Murphy, 56, say they were targeted by Kavanagh and her team “because they were at or near the age of 60” according to their lawsuit in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
The lawsuit is being covered in mainstream media as a simple ageism suit, as the demoted chiefs are roughly two decades older (and significantly more experienced) than Kavanagh. But the details of the suit--many of which the city is seeking to have removed from the filing--are salacious.
The chiefs allege that Kavanagh is dangerously unprepared, and that she is having an affair with her number two, Jon Paul Augier. Further, Augier has also been accused of racism involving two black firefighters, including leaving a noose in the workplace.
Of course, Kavanagh is in the news most notably this week for promising to "hunt down" the men who work for her. At a press event featuring the wildly biased, openly Trump-obsessed NY Attorney General Letitia James, many firefighters spontaneously exercised their First Amendment rights by chanting "Trump, Trump!" during James' remarks.
A reasonable response might have been a memo to the department asking for more decorum in the future. Instead, Kavanagh vowed to pursue the firefighters who dared to express themselves, claiming it would be "easier" if they turned themselves in.
TheManhattan will continue to monitor this unfolding story.
