With two weeks to go before he takes office, vested interests are making trouble for Mayor-elect Eric Adams.
The Queens Democratic boss, Rep. Gregory Meeks, is seeking an unholy alliance with Democratic socialists on the incoming City Council in a bid to install Adrienne Adams as speaker, rather than Francisco Moya, who’s said to be the mayor-elect’s preferred candidate.
Meanwhile, NYPD sources have told The Post that the rumored choice of Philip Banks as deputy mayor, with duties overseeing the department, led the top candidate for commissioner (former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best) to withdraw, fearing she wouldn’t actually be in charge.
Meeks’ deal would be particularly rancid, since the socialists aim to take over the Queens party and hold a host of vile beliefs, being virulently anti-Israel and pro-criminal. We’ve never been Meeks fans (The Post over the years has exposed a number of corrupt-seeming deals he’s been involved in), but this bargain would strike a new low.
The last thing the city needs is a council speaker indebted to extremists who oppose the crackdown on crime that Adams has vowed to deliver. Adams and anyone else who cares about New York’s future should pull out the stops to see that Meeks’ gambit fails.
Banks — a top member of Adams’ transition team and the brother of the mayor-elect’s excellent choice to run the schools system — is another matter. He was a rising NYPD star until he abruptly turned down a promotion and retired back in 2014, as the feds opened an investigation into a reported $300,000 in mysterious income.
No, that probe never led to any charges, and people we respect testify to Banks’ integrity. Moreover, Adams defends him: “Here you have an African American that moved up through the ranks to become the chief of this department. He was amazing at CompStat. He understands policing,” he said Wednesday. “I think that this city is better served with his knowledge and experience.”
Loyalty, and the value of having trusted deputies, might prompt Adams to bull ahead with tapping Banks. But the folks who are clearly gunning for Banks will exploit the cloud for all it’s worth.
Sometimes, you need to pick your fights: Adams needs to think carefully about whether bringing in Philip Banks will help make him an effective mayor, or create a crippling distraction in the new mayor’s crucial early days in office.
