Mayor-elect Eric Adams has selected three top candidates to be the city’s next Department of Education chancellor and police commissioner and will announce his final decisions shortly after returning from a trip to Ghana next week.
“We’re really excited, we have a good problem. The skills and candidates are amazing. We’re right on time. I’m down to three,” Adams told reporters Monday. following an event at the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch
“The team handed over the three of each group. As soon as I return you’re going to see back to back to back announcements,” Adams said. He’s leaving Monday night for a long-planned trip to Ghana to commemorate the 400th anniversary of slaves arriving in America. Adams is scheduled to return on Dec. 8.
“I’m going to spend these next few days looking over them again. I’m going to do a deep dive. I’m going to do some Zooms with a few of them while I’m away,” he said.
Eagle Academy founder David Banks, head of the all-boys schools that are a hybrid of public and charter models, is expected to be Adams next DOE chancellor, according to sources.
Adams has promised to appoint a woman as his head law enforcement official. Leading contenders include Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, Philadelphia top cop Danielle Outlaw and former Newark Police Chief Ivonne Roman. Sources said the mayor-elect hasn’t settled on final pick.
Adams, a retired NYPD captain, also defended any role that ex-police chief Philip Banks may have in his administration. Philip Banks retired from the department in 2014 as feds were eyeing him in a bribery case, but he was never charged nor found guilty of any wrongdoing.
Philip Banks is David Banks’ brother. Adams, who has a decades long relationship with the siblings, addressed the controversy around his former NYPD colleague Monday.
“For us to have him to sit on the bench because of an investigation that turned out, no one said that he did anything illegal, would be wrong to do while we’re dealing with a real crime crisis,” Adams said.
“He’s one of the people I’m considering. I have been using him as an advisor and I will roll out if he has an official role in the department,” Adams said.
Sources confirmed to The Post Philip Banks is being considered for a deputy mayor for public safety position, as first reported by Politico.
Adams also defended taking a trip to West Africa in the final weeks before he’s sworn in as the city’s 110th mayor on Jan. 1.
“This is a spiritual journey for me. This is 400 years of slavery. Four hundred years. My ancestors came over in the bottom of slave ships and 400 years later I’m the mayor of one of the most important cities in the world.
“I’m going there to pray. I’m going there to do some spiritual cleansing that’s there. People of Ghana, just like Obama when he ran for president, they’re waiting for me to go. I’m making a connection with my ancestry and background,” Adams said.
He’ll be the city’s second African-American mayor. Its first, David Dinkins, ran the Big Apple in the early 1990s. He died last year at age 93.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
