Mayor's chief of staff and long time lawyer pal quits the team

New York Times

One of Mayor Eric Adams’s closest advisers, who has helped formulate and work out some of the mayor’s thorniest policy challenges, has informed administration officials that he will resign at the end of the year.

The adviser, Frank Carone, a former power broker in the Brooklyn Democratic Party who helped fuel Mr. Adams’s rise in politics, had served as his chief of staff since January.

His exit is the first major departure of the Adams administration. Emma Wolfe, the last chief of staff for Mayor Bill de Blasio, stayed in that role for nearly all of his second term and worked in his administration for eight years.

Mr. Carone served as a gatekeeper and a negotiator for Mr. Adams, meeting with business leaders and working on projects like vetting casino operators vying for casino licenses in New York City and examining whether to use cruise ships to house migrants.

Mr. Carone said in an interview that he had always intended to stay in government for only one year and that he planned to serve as a chairman on Mr. Adams’s re-election campaign in 2025.

“I wanted to recruit the team, take a deep dive into agencies and build a culture for that team of no drama and getting things done,” Mr. Carone said.

Some of Mr. Carone’s past business dealings have drawn scrutiny, including his representation of landlords involved in an affordable housing deal and his involvement with a group of doctors accused of insurance fraud. Mr. Carone was also criticized for having a financial stake in a police tool that Mr. Adams promoted as Brooklyn borough president, and for failing to disclose his legal work for a homeless shelter provider.

As the mayor’s chief of staff, Mr. Carone has largely avoided controversy, helping Mr. Adams behind the scenes to respond to one crisis after another: the pandemic, the killing of two police officers in January, high crime rates, an influx of asylum seekers from Latin America, a staffing crisis in city government and concerns over the city’s economic recovery.