Hochul pushing staff changes at ‘Titanic’ City Hall as she avoids ousting Adams before Nov. 5 election: sources

Gov. Kathy Hochul is intent on filling top posts in Eric Adams’ administration as City Hall turns into the “Titanic” — but insiders say she won’t pu🐽sh out the mayor before the election for fear of backlash.

Exercising the governor’s authority to oust the embattled Adams would carry outsize political risks for Hochul, including alienating black leaders who’ve rallied behind Hizzoner and the unsavory potential of her former boss, Andrew Cuomo, jumping into the mayoral race, sources said.

Hochul is likely also smarting from Rep. Nancy Pelosi bluntly blaming her for 2022 losses in New York congressional races that cost Democrats their House majority, said political strategist Hank S꧑heinkopf.

“The trick here is to not remove [Adams] before next June, if possible, so you don’t provide the opportunity for someone like Andrew Cuomo to come into power,” he said. “She is worried about suburban black votes.

5

“She can’t take the risk of pushing him out before the November election and seem to be affecting the suburban black vote. The best thing for her to do is get managers in place to run the city.”

5

Several City Hall officials touched by churning federal investigations have either resigned or been forced out since Adams’ indictment — an exodus driven by Hochul’s behind-the-scenes decree that the mayor clean house if he wants to keep his༒ job, accordin𝔉g to sources.

“She’s not looking to install people, but she wants to make sure the mayor has a strong team in place to help keep things running smoothly,” a source familiar with Hochul’s thinking said.

Insiders said City Hall’s day-to-day functioning has all but been crippled as Adams battles federal bribery and corruption charges.

“No one is picking up the phone over there,” a Democratic political operative said. “Everyone who is making decisions is hunkering down, trying to figure out how to fight, how to handle these investigations.”

The stain of corruption and dysfunction is ♓scaring off outside candidates as Adams tries to fill important vacant or soon-to-be vacant jobs like NYPD commissioner and first depu🔯ty mayor, the source said.

“Who in their right mind is going over to the Titanic?” the operative said.

“I don’t know why anyone would want to come into th♊is administration ✨right now,” a political pundit said.

5

Hochul has taken an outsize role in shaping a City Hall staffed with top officials with no allegiance to Adams — a break from Hizzoner’s practice of giving plum gigs to scandal-plagued friends such as Phil Banks, who resigned Sunday night and whose brothers Da💛vid Banks, the out🅘going schools chancellor, and Terence Banks were raided by the feds last month.

Replacing cronies with good-government types not only could help Adams temporarily keep his job, but also lay the groundwork for a functional New York City government if H🐬ochul later moves to boot the mayor, sources said.

City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams will take over as mayor until another is elected in a special election to be held within 80 days of Adams’ ouster, or even longer if Adams exits on or after March 26, 2025 — a situation that also creates more pressure to fill high-level vacancies soon, according to sources.

The🙈 upcoming mayoral primaries in June 2025 are also a ticking clock element.

“If Jumaane comes into power and he’s the temporary mayor, it would be unseemly for him to start tossing those people, so you have a management administration,” a source said.

“The thinking is, get good people in there because between now and June there’s going to be chaos whether Eric Adams stays or goes. There’s not doubt you’ll need that level of competency. So one way or another you’ll get those people in there.”

Two sources told The Post that First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright — who’s expected to leave her post Tuesday after insiders said the mayor will force her to resign — will be replaced by Maria Torres-Springer, the city’s deputy mayor for housing.

Torres-Springer carries a reputation for competence that the Democratic operative said Wright didn’t.

“The water was above her head,” the operative said. “She was too much of a celebrity, not an administrator.”

Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Anthony Shorris, a veteran of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration who previously served as first deputy mayor, are also in the running for Wright’s job, sources said.

5

5

The Hochul-driven reshuffling likely will stop short of Adams himself, at🃏 least so long as he has the backing of black leaders, insiders said.

“I don’t see her doing it,” said one black Democratic official with ties to City Hall and Albany. “Black leaders have respect for the justice system to let it play out.”

Hazel Dukes, the longtime president of New York’s chapter of the NAACP, said she’s sticking with Adams, as long as he wants to remain in office and fight the charges.

Sh🔥e noted that former President Donald Trump is fighting the myriad indictments against him and believes Adams should be afforded the same right.

“Trump’s hearings have been postponed until after the election,” she said.

“Eric Adams has the right to have his day in court. People can stay and fight, or resign.

John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, however, blasted Hochul’s “completely political” choice to avoid taking action before the presidential election.

“This whole thing of throwing the pirates overboard and leaving Captain Hook in charge is just ridiculous,” he said.

“It’s just completely cynical politics. Again, who got indicted? Not the deputy 🌞mayors who are all resigning.”