Add The New York Post on Google Retired NYPD Chief of Department John Chell, who was the highest ranking uniformed officer at the department until his retirement last year, promises cops will hit the jackpot if he’s elected mayor in 2029.
“I would make this department the highest paid in the nation,” the longshot candidate, who’s running as an Independent, told The Post on Thursday.
Chell, 57, announced he was running for mayor in a video on X in April.
Public safety is at the top of his agenda and he vows to raise the total number of police officers in the NYPD closer to 40,000. The number is hovering around 35,000 right now.
Chell, who grew up in Brooklyn and lives in Staten Island today, also wants to make the department’s training tougher to ensure officers can handle the job — including physically testing those at higher ranks, he said.
“So look, every rank should be in shape,” said the tough-talking 30-year veteran of the Force, who retired last year. “Like every two years, you should be able to run X amount of distance in X amount of time based on your age.”
But he’s running for mayor to handle more than just public safety, he said.
He’s against socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-a-terre tax, which Chell said is just the mayor’s way of pandering to his base. He also wants to cut waste from city government and fix a slew of problems in the city’s crumbling public housing.
Even though he’s known as a tough guy, there’s a side of him the public doesn’t know, Chell said.
“Nobody knew the community side of me,” he said, explaining that he held Easter Egg hunts, coloring book contests and other activities for children when he led Brooklyn’s 75th and 79th precincts.
“No one saw it,” he said. “No one ever writes about it.”
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When asked about his chances, Chell pointed out that Mamdani came from behind to win and he could, too.
“I’m gonna be that wild card,” he said. “I’m not going to subscribe to the cultural norms of any party that tells me I have to act a certain way. I’m part of this village.”
