NEW YORK — Another FDNY chief has asked to be demoted as the department continues to quake from the ongoing clash between Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and the department’s top brass, sources told The New York Daily News.
Assistant Chief Thomas Currao sent a letter asking for a demotion and to be put back in the field earlier this week, sources with knowledge of the case said.
Currao was apparently outraged of the flippant way newly minted First Deputy Commissioner Joseph Pfeifer dismissed concerns by staff chiefs who feel they’re being ignored by Kavanagh and her team in a recent New York Times column, said the sources.
Pfeifer said in the interview that the chiefs’ demotion requests “lessened their authority in the field.” He also said he didn’t see how the chiefs could be part of the FDNY going forward.
“They can’t go out on their own and make their own rules,” Pfeifer said, adding that if chiefs could ask to be demoted “why not an entire firehouse says, I want to be transferred.”
Pfeifer also said the FDNY has a deep bench to replace the dissatisfied chiefs.
“There’s a lot of very experienced people in the field that we can bring up, that may even have more experience than some of the people that want to self-demote,” he said.
Currao, who sources said had been trying to mend relations between Kavanagh and the chiefs who dislike her, felt that Pfeifer had “stabbed him in the back.”
He is the 10th staff chief who has either been demoted by Kavanagh or had asked to be lowered in rank to deputy chief, sources said.
There are 23 staff chiefs in the entire FDNY, including several on medical leave. Between those who have been demoted and those out on medical leave, there are only seven active staff chiefs citywide, a source with knowledge of the situation said.
Kavanagh hasn’t signed off on any of the demotion requests. She’s asked the chiefs to hang on for three more months.
The turmoil in the department’s upper ranks came into full view in February after the Daily News broke a story about how two top uniformed FDNY officials stepped down to protest Kavanagh demoting three other chiefs.
The three assistant chiefs Kavanagh demoted — Michael Gala, Joseph Jardin and Fred Schaaf — were lowered in rank after Kavanagh complained they hadn’t given brought her any new ideas.
She was said to have wanted “out-of-the-box thinking” from the chiefs, but was peppered with requests about overtime and department-issued take-home cars, according to a recording of the gathering shared with the Daily News.
Kavanagh’s decisions have received the full support of Mayor Eric Adams, who selected her for the post in October.
“We knew from the onset that Commissioner Kavanagh was coming in, she was changing a culture that she felt she should have changed, and she wanted those high-ranking individuals to be responsive to her mission moving forward. And that’s what she did,” Adams said on 1010 WINS last month.
The demoted chiefs are currently suing the department, accusing Kavanagh of ageism. At 40, Kavanagh, the city’s first woman fire commissioner, is also one of the city’s youngest commissioners.
“City Hall has its head buried in the sand,” said attorney Jim Walden, who is representing the angry chiefs. “The situation at the FDNY is further devolving. If the mayor refuses to act, he’ll own the consequences.”
FDNY spokeswoman Amanda Farinacci said despite the turmoil among the top chiefs, the Fire Department is ready to handle any emergency.
“Under Commissioner Kavanagh’s leadership, the FDNY remains fully ready to respond to New Yorkers who call 911 for help,” Farinacci said. “While we don’t comment on personnel matters, the department is fully staffed.”
