Mayor Adams makes personnel announcements (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Update: NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced on Monday, June 12, that she will be stepping down, without providing a reason for her resignation.  

New York City’s chief housing officer, Jessica Katz, is set to step down in July, marking the latest high-profile departures from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration in barely eighteen months.

A growing list of the Democratic mayor’s top appointees have left the administration, including senior officials who announced their resignations before the mayor’s first year in office had even concluded. It’s an unusually high level of turnover at the highest levels of city government, particularly for a mayor who has prided himself on the promise of being a good manager.

The administration continues to struggle with footing as it faces several challenges, chiefly the migrant asylum-seeker crisis that has overshadowed most of the mayor’s other priorities, while city services overall have been hamstrung by the broader agency personnel shortage that Adams has yet to solve.

Along with his chief housing officer, Adams has already seen the departure or announced departure of his first chief of staff, first deputy mayor, social services commissioner, buildings commissioner, communications director, chief counsel, and others.

Katz, who also served in the administrations of both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, made her resignation public in an interview with Gothamist this past week. She helped craft the mayor’s housing plan, with an ambitious “moonshot” goal of creating 500,000 units of housing over the next ten years and a multitude of planks. But the administration continues to struggle with a ballooning homelessness crisis exacerbated by the influx of migrants, sky-high rents and increasing unaffordability. Accomplishing the housing plan requires significant state action, which has largely been elusive.

Katz subsequently told the New York Times that she had achieved her goals with the administration and wished to spend more time with her family. But the Times cited two unnamed sources that pointed to confusion about who was leading the administration’s housing policies and Katz’s frustration with the mayor over his opposition to a housing rental voucher bill before the City Council. Adams has also faced widespread criticism over his attempts to rollback the city’s long-established right to shelter, part of the ongoing emergency effort to house tens of thousands of new arrivals.

The Times also reported on the resignation of Melanie La Rocca, who Mayor Adams named as the city’s chief efficiency officer, a new position he created to make city government leaner and more streamlined. 

On Monday, July 12, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced her resignation in an email to the department, according to news reports. “While my time here will come to a close, I will never step away from my advocacy and support for the N.Y.P.D., and I will always be a champion for the people of New York City,” she wrote, according to The New York Times. Sewell did not provide a reason for her resignation.

Besides those most recent announcements, two other officials are also headed for the door this summer. Last month, Politico New York reported that Chief Counsel Brendan McGuire and Communications Director Maxwell Young are leaving. Both are expected to be part of the mayor’s campaign operation as he looks toward a 2025 reelection bid.

In a WABC interview on Thursday, Adams brushed off the notion that officials were abandoning a sinking ship. “People come and go in government,” he said, when asked about Katz’s resignation, and offered praise for her work in his administration.

“People will try to spin it any way they want,” he added. “Brendan is leaving this year. My comms person, Max, is going on to do some great things. People come in, sacrifice their lives to be in government and then they transition to other things. This is a grind. Don't let nobody kid you.”

“We appreciate every moment each of these individuals has spent serving this city and its residents,” said Fabien Levy, the mayor’s press secretary, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. “These are extraordinarily difficult and time-demanding jobs, and we never expect anyone to dedicate an unlimited amount of time serving in these roles. Many of our employees enter city service with a list of goals they want to get done alongside Mayor Adams for the people of New York, and decide to leave when they have accomplished those goals. We appreciate every second given by all of our employees to the greatest city in the world, and each of these individuals remain close friends of Mayor Adams and the administration.”

The exodus of top officials from City Hall began late last year with Frank Carone, Adams’ chief of staff and longtime ally — and a controversial figure given his many legal entanglements prior to joining the administration and plans to cash in on his connections upon leaving it. The New York Times first reported that Carone planned to resign by the end of 2022. An attorney and Brooklyn power broker, Carone is now working on the mayor’s reelection campaign and running a new consulting business where he helps high-powered clients.

Following closely after that news, the New York Daily News reported that Lorraine Grillo, first deputy mayor to Adams, was also stepping down before the year was up. (At the end of September, Roberto Perez, head of the city’s intergovernmental affairs office, also left the administration to join the private sector. Perez had remained in his role from the de Blasio administration. Intergovernmental affairs has been one of Adams’ biggest challenges.)

“Carone leaving the way he did wasn’t unexpected. Grillo, that was unexpected that she left the way that she did,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant.

Sheinkopf also said that some turnover after the first year isn’t unusual, comparing it with Ed Koch’s administration that saw several deputy mayors replaced in his second year. “What is unusual is [Mayor Adams’] management style,” Sheinkopf added, “which is, he's definitely in control more so than most mayors. Decisions don't get made without him, even at what appears to be the more granular levels.”

He said Adams’ management style is akin to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani “who was a much more forceful manager” and Mayor de Blasio, who had a reputation for micromanaging his top officials. But it stands in stark contrast to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who “was one of the best managers...because he knew how to manage, he would delegate when appropriate.” So despite who serves in the highest echelons of Adams’ administration, “He is the decision maker. He’s in total control.”

“People come and go in every administration,” said George Arzt, also a veteran Democratic political consultant.

Both Carone and Grillo wanted to get the administration on the right path before moving on, Arzt said. “In every administration, there are changes, sometimes massive changes. Sometimes the mayor wants them, sometimes the [appointees] want them.”

The pattern doesn’t strike everyone as business as usual. “Several high profile departures from the Mayor’s administration does not inspire confidence when double digit vacancies and the Mayor’s budget cuts plague the city’s ability to deliver core essential services,” said Zara Nasir, executive director of The People’s Plan, a progressive coalition. “We need the administration to start taking the job of governing more seriously, and that means buckling down and getting agencies the resources and leadership they need to do the important job of serving New Yorkers in need of housing and essential services.”

Some of the administration’s early major departures have been especially controversial.

In November, Eric Ulrich, a former City Council Member from Queens, resigned as commissioner of the Department of Buildings while he was being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for illegal gambling.

In February of this year, Gary Jenkins, commissioner of the Department of Social Services, also stepped down amid scandal. Jenkins had faced widespread criticism for his management of the city’s homelessness crisis, and was under scrutiny by the Department of Investigation for incidents involving homeless families having to stay overnight in an intake office in the Bronx.

The previous administration saw some early top resignations, but not nearly as many as the current one. For instance, in February 2015, barely into the second year of Mayor de Blasio’s administration, his chief of staff Laura Santucci left City Hall for a job with the United Nations and senior advisor Peter Ragone departed for California where his family lived.

“We're approaching the 18-month period, so I don't think it's unusual to see some changes at this stage,” said Eric Phillips, a former de Blasio press secretary turned political consultant, by email. “Senior-level jobs in city government are grueling. Frankly, most people stay in them a little longer than they should. When you're out of gas, it's the responsible thing to admit it and pass the torch to the next person."

City Council Member Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, said in a text message, “I have always had more problems with commissioners that have overstayed their welcome and usefulness than those who left before they went sour.”

On Friday, Mayor Adams appointed Ana Almanzar as the new Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives, a position that went unfilled for nearly half a year, since January when Sheena Wright, who previously held the post, was elevated to First Deputy Mayor.