Levy has risen in influence as his colleagues in the City Hall press shop have departed, and the deputy mayor runs interference for the mayor in his dealings with the press.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Formerly<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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• Director of Communications, then-New York Congressmember Kathy Hochul<\/li>\n\n\n\n
• Director of Communications, California State Treasurer’s Office<\/li>\n\n\n\n
• Press Secretary and Senior Adviser, the New York Attorney General Letitia James<\/li>\n\n\n\n
• City Hall Press Secretary<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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  Currently<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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  • Deputy Mayor for Communications<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    At 40 years old, Fabien Levy was promoted from spokesperson to deputy mayor for communications, with an annual salary of $251,900<\/a>. What kind of top-notch communicating are taxpayers getting for their money? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Well, there’s the time in November that Eric Adams mysteriously blew off his scheduled meetings with White House officials (where he planned to plead the City’s case on migrant funding) and rushed back to the city, and then news broke of an FBI raid on the home of his chief campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, and everyone wanted to know just <\/strong>what on earth was going on. Levy’s press shop rose to the occasion, telling anyone<\/a> who inquired<\/a> that\u2014and this is a direct quote\u2014”the mayor returned to New York City to address a matter.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The next day, Levy communicated that the mayor was canceling the press conference<\/a> that would have been reporters’ first chance to ask him about the aforementioned FBI raid, explaining that the mayor couldn’t talk to reporters because the Mayor’s Office is closed on Election Day, which was weird because the previous Election Day\u2026the mayor spoke with reporters<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Or there’s the time Hell Gate challenged Levy to point to any evidence at all underlying the mayor’s repeated<\/a> claim<\/a> that New York City children are being sold marijuana laced with fentanyl. If this was a real thing (a medical expert assured us it is not<\/a>) affecting New Yorkers, we wanted to know more. What specific incidents was the mayor talking about? Levy dug deep, and came back to us with two hyperlinks: one to a South Carolina local news report<\/a> reblogging a Facebook post, and the other to a single-sourced local news story<\/a> from Merced, California, repeating police claims based on an unreliable field test. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There was also the time in September when a severe storm washed out city streets<\/a> and flooded basements<\/a>, and the mayor did not appear until five hours after the rain started<\/a> to tell New Yorkers they should “be prepared for this moment.” Adams’s disaster response got failing grades<\/a> from his haters, but Levy punched back<\/a>, noting that the Mayor’s Press Office had forwarded a press release from NYC Emergency Management at 11:08 the night before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n