NYPD Chief O’Neill and FDNY Nigro remain for mayor’s 2nd term

The NYPD’s James O’Neill and FDNY’s Dan Nigro Thursday announced they will remain the agencies’ commissioners in Bill de Blasio’s second and final term, but his schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, formally declared her retirement from the nation’s biggest school system.

Seated at a City Hall news conference, the 56-year-old Democratic mayor said that his administration began a nationwide search weeks ago to replace Fariña, 74 — a process that could continue until the end of the 2017-2018 school year.

First Lady Chirlane McCray, seated next to her husband — who has long described her as his closest adviser — said of the appointees: “Really, wow, have they delivered.”

O’Neill, a cop since 1983, and Nigro, who joined the firefighting force in 1969, promised to continue de Blasio’s progressive agenda.

Under O’Neill, appointed in August 2016, the NYPD is tasked with executing de Blasio’s first-term campaign pledge to soothe tensions with black and Latino neighborhoods that have long complained of unfair treatment, and to change policy accordingly. Major crime has continued its decades-long plunge.

Nigro, appointed in June 2014, said fostering diversity is the FDNY’s most important mission “other than life safety.” Few big-city fire departments are as white or male as FDNY’s, where, as of earlier this year, 90 percent are white and fewer than 60 of the nearly 11,000-member force are female.

De Blasio’s predecessor, Mike Bloomberg, had resisted attempts to continue tweaking the civil service process for the sake of diversity, saying it would endanger public safety. But Nigro disagrees with that contention, and de Blasio said such changes have resulted in better recruitment of non-white and women.

De Blasio declined to give details on the search for a new chancellor, except that he or she “would be an educator.” Bloomberg had installed two non-educators — including Joel Klein, a lawyer, and Cathie Black, a magazine magnate — in the schools post. On Thursday, de Blasio called Black’s tumultuous, 95-day tenure “a sad episode.”

De Blasio also said that the city’s top lawyer, Zachary Carter, is staying on.

The mayor also announced that he now supports the campaign of Councilman Corey Johnson, a Manhattan Democrat, to become speaker of the city’s 51-member legislature. The speaker is the chamber’s most powerful post.

He called Johnson, 35, “a force for the people.” But, according to sources, de Blasio had not initially backed Johnson for the speakership — preferring Mark Levine, a Manhattan Democrat. But he found out while on a trip to Iowa that Johnson had clinched enough support from county party bosses, who strongly influence how council members vote, the sources said.

Johnson is now all but assured of victory.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.