NYC Mayor Adams names two top aides to deputy mayor roles

Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News on Jan 13, 2025

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NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday he’s naming two top advisers to deputy mayor positions — a move that comes after one of the aides sought to leave City Hall for a private sector job, the Daily News has learned.

Tiffany Raspberry, Adams’ intergovernmental affairs director, and Camille Joseph-Varlack, his chief of staff, will take on the deputy mayor roles effective immediately, Adams said at his weekly press conference Monday morning at City Hall.

Joseph-Varlack’s becoming the “deputy mayor of administration,” while Raspberry’s being given the title “deputy mayor of intergovernmental affairs,” Adams told reporters. Both titles are new to the city government bureaucracy.

Joseph-Varlack, who will also retain her chief of staff role, already makes a base annual salary of $287,663, the deputy mayor level pay grade, and won’t get a raise, according to Adams.

Raspberry, a longtime Adams ally who worked on and helped raise funds for his 2021 campaign, currently makes $260,000 and will get a salary bump to the deputy mayor level, he said.

Prior to the new role, Raspberry applied to become Fordham University’s new vice president of external affairs — a job she ultimately didn’t get, according to a source directly familiar with the matter. A since-closed job posting for the Fordham post says it has a minimum starting salary of $310,000.

Adams, who has pleaded not guilty in a federal corruption indictment, has seen a large number of senior advisers depart his administration in recent months, several after becoming ensnared in corruption investigations of their own.

A Fordham University spokesman declined to comment Monday. Raspberry didn’t immediately return a request for comment, but Adams spokeswoman Amaris Cockfield said her Fordham application played no factor in her promotion.

The elevation of Joseph-Varlack and Raspberry means Adams now has eight deputy mayors, more by one than other recent mayors, according to Louis Cholden-Brown, an attorney and City Charter expert. Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch at certain points in their tenures had seven deputies, the highest number Cholden-Brown said he could recall.

With Josephine Stratman