Mayor Eric Adams named two new top staffers to his year-old administration on Tuesday to replace his chief of staff and top deputy mayor, both of whom announced they were leaving amid a wave of fall departures.
Sheena Wright will replace Lorraine Grillo as his First Deputy Mayor, a position that essentially serves as the Penn Station dispatch of the administration when it comes to managing the day-to-day functions of city government and its $100 billion budget.
Meanwhile, Camille Varlack will replace longtime Brooklyn fixer and attorney Frank Carone as his new chief-of-staff, a role that typically brings outsized influence in shaping overall policy and managing politics at City Hall.
“These are huge shoes to fill,” Hizzoner said during a morning press conference at City Hall.
“But these two ladies and their red bottoms,” he added in a winking reference to the French shoe designer Christian Louboutin, a favorite of the power suit set, “they’re going to bring their own pair.”
Grillo had previously served as the chief of the School Construction Authority and as a key figure helping to manage former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s response to the coronavirus crisis.
Wright is the first African-American woman to hold the title of First Deputy and had previously served as Adams’ deputy mayor overseeing strategic initiatives.
She is the longtime partner of Schools Chancellor David Banks and was the chief executive of the New York City chapter of the United Way before joining City Hall.
Varlack is a former top aide to ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including serving as one of his appointees on the state’s former ethics enforcement body, Joint Commission on Public Ethics.
Grillo and Carone’s departures came amid a wave of press accounts detailing dysfunction in Mayor Adams’ administration — including complaints about micromanagement from City Hall and internecine warfare between top figures in the administration, which combined, had gummed up its ability to make decisions.
Adams has hotly disputed those accounts — and that the dysfunction pushed either Carone or Grillo to exit. Instead, he has said that both had planned to leave after the first year.