CNN
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Four top deputies in Eric Adams’ administration submitted their resignations Monday, in the latest sign of the New York City mayor’s cratering support among rank-and-file workers and the city’s elected officials.
Maria Torres-Springer, first deputy mayor; Anne Williams-Isom, deputy mayor for health and human services; Meera Joshi, deputy mayor for operations; and Chauncey Parker, deputy mayor for public safety, all notified Adams on Monday that they would step down from their posts.
“I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future,” Adams said in a statement announcing the resignations.
It is not yet clear when the resignations will take effect. In the statement, Adams said the “deputy mayors will remain in their roles for the time being to ensure a seamless transition.”
The resignations of the city’s highest-profile public servants mark a significant shift for the Adams administration, which has been struggling to reset after a Department of Justice memo last week ordered federal prosecutors in New York to dismiss corruption charges against the mayor.
The DOJ’s order sparked a mass resignation of prosecutors in New York and Washington, including the Trump-installed acting US attorney in the Southern District of New York, who resigned rather than carry out the order to dismiss the corruption case against Adams, a Democrat. The prosecutors decried the order to drop the charges — which cited in part Adams’ role as mayor helping the Trump administration combat illegal immigration — as a bargain amounting to a “quid pro quo.”
The four deputy mayors held a call with Adams on Sunday and agreed to hold off on making a final decision on stepping down, an official familiar with the discussions said. However, Joshi, Torres-Springer and Williams-Isom reached out to Adams on Monday morning and said they had finalized their decisions to step down.
“Due to the extraordinary events of the last few weeks and to stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers and our families, we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles,” Torres-Springer, Williams-Isom and Joshi said in a joint statement.
Torres-Springer, Williams-Isom and Joshi are career public servants and highly regarded in the city’s government circles. They are also responsible for putting much of the mayor’s agenda into place. Their portfolios include some of the city’s biggest agencies, including the public hospital system, the Department of Homeless Services, and the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, to name a few.
Since Adams was indicted on federal corruption charges last year, the group was seen as a steady hand that could keep city government churning along even as the mayor found himself distracted by the case against him.
Parker, a relative newcomer to the administration, said in a statement, “Serving as deputy mayor for public safety under Mayor Adams has been an honor of a lifetime. … I am confident that the administration will continue on our mission to deliver for the people of this city.”
Monday’s departures come months after another round of high-profile officials left the administration shortly after charges against the mayor were announced in September.
The Justice Department last year brought public corruption charges against Adams in the first prosecution of a sitting mayor in the city’s modern history. Adams pleaded not guilty to federal counts of bribery, corruption, wire fraud, and soliciting and accepting donations from foreign nationals, and the case was set to go to trial this spring. Last week’s order says the charges should be dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning they could be refiled at a later date.
The Justice Department’s directive highlighted the mayor’s need to cooperate with federal immigration authorities — which lawmakers in New York said puts Adams in a position of being “beholden” to President Donald Trump’s administration.
After news of the directive last week, Adams also met with Trump’s border czar and said he would use his executive powers to increase the city’s law enforcement collaboration with federal immigration authorities.
Adams told Fox News on Friday that there was no “quid pro quo” to get the DOJ to drop the charges in exchange for his cooperation on immigration enforcement. Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, on Sunday also called it “ridiculous” that concessions made by Adams to let Immigrations and Customs Enforcement into Rikers Island jail were related to the DOJ directive.
Several city and state lawmakers have called for Adams’ resignation or for Gov. Kathy Hochul to use her power to remove him. The Democratic governor has said she is weighing her options but has not committed to taking any action.
In response to the deputies’ resignations Monday, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the mayor should resign. The speaker said in a tersely worded statement that the mayor had “lost the confidence and trust of his own staff, his colleagues in government and New Yorkers.”
“He now must prioritize New York City and New Yorkers, step aside and resign,” she said. “These resignations are the culmination of the mayor’s actions and decisions that have led to months of instability and now compromise the City’s sovereignty, threaten chaos, and risk harm to our families.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running against Eric Adams in the June mayoral primary, also issued an immediate response, sending a letter to the mayor asking the administration to detail its contingency plans as four senior officials prepare to depart their posts.
“These departures would create an unprecedented leadership vacuum at the highest levels of City government and wreak havoc on the City’s ability to deliver essential services to New Yorkers,” Lander said.
The demand for a plan also included a warning: If the mayor does not submit one by the end of this week, Lander said he would convene a meeting of the Inability Committee. The Inability Committee could set in motion what can be described as New York City’s version of impeachment, a move that has never been used in the city’s modern history.
According to the city charter, a “committee on mayoral inability” would be made up of five members: the city’s corporation counsel, the comptroller, the City Council speaker, a deputy mayor selected by the mayor, and the most senior borough president. Four of the five would have to agree to form the committee, and then the City Council — where Adams does not hold wide support — would vote to declare Adams temporarily or permanently “unable” to discharge the powers and duties of the office, according to the charter.
This story has been updated with additional information.
