FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh says she is unaware of any campaign to pressure fire chiefs to fast-track approval of the new Turkish Consulate in 2021, despite safety concerns.
"I would say the Fire Department in my decade there has always done what is safe for New Yorkers and I have never seen otherwise," Kavanagh said in a brief interview with News 4 Friday.
Kavanagh's comments come two days after allegations that jobs were threatened over the desire to green-light the Turkish Consulate, a project for which Eric Adams advocated shortly before winning the mayor’s race.
Several FDNY employees including Chief Joseph Jardin, who headed the Bureau of Fire Prevention, told the FBI about the alleged pressure in April, according to Jardin's attorney Jim Walden. Sources familiar with the FBI's investigation say they are exploring whether the Adams campaign coordinated improper contributions from Turkish officials and whether he may have traded favors in return. Adams insists he has done nothing improper and was just conducting the normal government business he likes to call "getting stuff done.”
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During the interview with News 4, Commissioner Kavanagh also confirmed that in the de Blasio and Adams administrations, City Hall has circulated a list of projects to be fast-tracked. But she denied the list was reserved for powerful developers or politicians.
"That list has always been shared widely with a large number of people and has always been about city interests. What does the city need opened?" Kavanagh said.
The existence of the list was first reported by News 4 after Walden said Chief Jardin and others had told the FBI about it.
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“What my client and others have said to the FBI is that this problem of City Hall reaching into the Fire Department to do favors for other people is a longstanding problem. The FBI was told to the point that a list started circulating internally about projects that City Hall wanted to be expedited."
Jardin's complaints about this list — which he calls "the DMO list,” a reference to the Deputy Mayor for Operations - are included in an age discrimination lawsuit he and other chiefs have filed against the City and Kavanaugh, who demoted them. The suit alleges "the DMO list became a mechanism to force FDNY to permit politically connected developers to cut the inspection line."
An FDNY spokesman says the fact that Jardin is suing Kavanagh raises questions about the veracity of his allegations related to threats and the Turkish consulate, stating that Jardin has "a financial interest in smearing Kavanagh's good name."
Kavanagh said the list rightfully includes big economic development projects that bring jobs, but also public projects like schools and hospitals.
“Over two administrations, we have had a system for dealing with all of these incoming requests. Sometimes we're dealing with a backlog. A major backlog,” she said.
There was a backlog in 2021, during the advocacy for the Turkish consulate, according to FDNY officials and the Real Estate Board of New York, which acknowledges they regularly tried to assist developers and construction companies.
Emails obtained by News 4 show there was a sense of urgency to the consulate because Turkish officials were arriving within weeks to attend the UN General Assembly and wanted access to their new building. The emails were obtained from a source cooperating with the investigation and confirmed by others on the email chain.
The emails show that Laura Kavanagh, who served as first deputy fire commissioner at the time, was enlisted to help expedite approval by then Buildings Commissioner Melanie LaRocca and agreed to look into it. The emails do not show Kavanagh applying pressure.
Kavanagh does forward the matter to her intergovernmental staffer who asks Chief Jardin in a subsequent email, "Is it possible to get inspectors on site sooner?" adding, “please tell us what is realistic and we'll update Laura."
Asked whether she believes anyone at the FDNY pressured chiefs to get the consulate done, Kavanagh said, “I was not fire commissioner at the time so I can't speak to their conversations. That was two years ago. But I would say that we get these constituent requests all the time.”
Kavanagh added that she does not believe the ultimate approval of the consulate happened because of intervention by Eric Adams. She says Adams did not contact her about the consulate.
The FBI has interviewed former Commissioner Daniel Nigro twice as a witness, not as a target of their investigation, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Nigro declined to discuss the investigation at this time.
Kavanagh said she has not been contacted by the FBI.
