Third FDNY chief surrenders post as Fire Commissioner Kavanagh holds summit with leadership

A third FDNY chief has surrendered his post as Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh sat down with the department’s leadership team in an attempt to bring an end to the turmoil with the upper ranks, the Daily News has learned.

In an email to Kavanagh with the subject line “request,” Deputy Assistant Chief Frank Leeb asked to be bumped back down to deputy chief and to be returned to a field assignment.

Leeb is the chief of safety for the fire department. His requested demotion in rank comes after Chief of Department John “Jack” Hodgens, the most senior uniformed official in the FDNY, and Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito resigned their ranks over the weekend.

“It is a privilege to serve and I have never taken this privilege lightly,” Leeb wrote in his email, a copy of which was viewed by The News. “However, several changes have led me to believe that our organizational priorities are shifting away from the cornerstones of safety and training which have long protected the citizens and visitors of New York City as well as the members of our great organization.”

Leeb also noted that “breaches of trust coupled with a lack of communication and transparency have further led me to this difficult decision.”

The chief asked to be put back in the field as of March 6. “I look forward to continuing to serve and contribute in meaningful ways,” he wrote.

Although no one has flat out resigned or retired, a least three more chiefs are expected to voluntarily give up their rank this week, one source said.

The ongoing relinquishing of rank is a show of no-confidence in Kavanagh, who demoted Assistant Chiefs Fred Schaaf, Michael Gala and Joseph Jardin to deputy chief on Friday, sources said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Kavanagh held a meeting at FDNY headquarters with all the high-ranking chiefs, as well as all the borough commanders, in an attempt to clear the air and get everyone back to work, multiple sources said.

A high-ranking FDNY official said Hodgens was outraged Kavanagh, the first woman fire commissioner in the department’s history, demoted the three chiefs without informing him.

A source from Kavanagh’s camp, in turn, said the fire commissioner had repeatedly asked Hodgens to either transfer or discipline the chiefs, who have had multiple complaints lodged against them and are considered “bad apples,” but he had refused to do so.

“The chiefs feel they’re being excluded from [Kavanagh’s] decisions and things are being decided without their input,” Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Jim McCarthy told The News Tuesday. “This wasn’t a one-time incident.”

The self-imposed demotions will mean a drop in pay in the short term but all of the chiefs are close to retirement age, a source said. The drop in rank won’t affect their pension, which is calculated from the highest salary of their last three years in service.

Kavanagh was jeered by a small group of firefighters at a promotion ceremony on Tuesday. After the ceremony she told reporters that Hodgens and Esposito were still at their posts.

“It’s totally acceptable to me if they don’t want to [stay], and we will have that conversation,” she said. “Whatever they decide to do, I respect their opinion.”