{"id":468887,"date":"2025-12-24T12:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T12:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/468887\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T12:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T12:58:12","slug":"nyc-mayor-elect-zohran-mamdani-scrambling-to-fill-key-positions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/468887\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani scrambling to fill key positions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani<\/a> is scrambling to fill key positions \u2014 as he prepares to take office next week.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old Queens assemblyman has yet to name a schools chancellor, a health commissioner or a transportation boss.<\/p>\n

Other unannounced positions remaining include his deputy mayor for operations and key economic development and planning posts, among other agency roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fully confident in the team that we are assembling and in the pace at which we are assembling it,\u201d Mamdani insisted to reporters on\u00a0Monday.<\/p>\n

The Mamdani transition \u2014 which has raised more than $3.5 million from donors \u2014 has a leadership team, as well 400 advisers across 17 committees.<\/p>\n

But questions have surfaced about the transition team\u2019s vetting process.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s selection of Catherine Almonte Da Costa<\/a> as appointments director blew up last week when newly unearthed posts revealed antisemitic and anti-police comments \u2014 including rants about \u201cmoney hungry Jews\u201d and defunding NYPD \u201cpiggies.\u201d<\/p>\n

She resigned hours later.<\/p>\n

A challenge for Democratic Socialist Mamdani and his lefty brain trust is that they don\u2019t have strong relationships with people outside of politics \u2014 such as in the business world,\u00a0according to sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cMamdani has a shallow professional\u00a0pool. How many socialists are qualified to run a government agency?\u201d quipped political strategist Ken Frydman.<\/p>\n

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has yet to name a schools chancellor, a health commissioner or a transportation boss before he takes office next week. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pickings are slim if you have a purity test.\u201d<\/p>\n

A big question is who Mamdani will name to head the largest public school district in the nation, serving nearly 1 million students.<\/p>\n

Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams<\/a> named David Banks as his first school chancellor in early 2021 before taking office \u2014 and it was clear by this time in 2013 that then Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio would appoint Carmen Farina as his DOE boss.<\/p>\n

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, the current schools chancellor, has expressed interest in wanting to stay on,\u00a0with the backing of United Federation of Teachers union president Mike Mulgrew.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has yet to name a deputy mayor, along with other notable roles on his team, before he is sworn in as the 111th mayor of New York City. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

Adams appointed current Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez on Dec. 20, 2021, before taking office.<\/p>\n

He named Gary Jenkins the\u00a0city\u2019s Human Resources commissioner two days later.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear who will run those agencies under Mamdani.<\/p>\n

A source said current Adams admin agency commissioners have\u00a0been told by Mamdani\u2019s team whether he wants them to stay on \u2014 at least temporarily \u2014 or leave by Jan. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s transition team claimed it\u2019s in good shape in building an administration.<\/p>\n

The mayor-elect said competence \u2014 not ideology \u2014 was his main criteria in hiring. It\u2019s what led him to retain Jessica Tisch as police commissioner<\/a>, in his first major appointment announcement last month that he also telegraphed during the general election campaign.<\/p>\n

He has also appointed experienced managers who served under former fellow lefty progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio, who Mamdani has cited as the best mayor of his lifetime.<\/p>\n

And Mamdani has also kept on several Adams appointees, and shown praise for some of the outgoing mayor\u2019s key initiatives, including the housing-boosting \u201cCity of Yes\u201d rezoning plan.<\/p>\n

Mamdani recently named Adams\u2019 executive director of housing, Leila Bozorg, as his deputy mayor for housing and planning.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he announced he retained\u00a0two other Adams appointees \u2014 Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan and\u00a0Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol, who played a key role in addressing the migrant crisis \u2014\u00a0 to continue running the agencies in order to maintain stability during the winter snow season.<\/p>\n

He also appointed former FDNY EMS veteran Lillian Bonsignore<\/a> as his fire commissioner.<\/p>\n

The Adams camp has been quite amused at how many of the mayor\u2019s people are being kept on given how Mamdani pilloried him during the campaign. <\/p>\n

Mamadani told reporters, \u201cWe are fully confident in the team that we are assembling and in the pace at which we are assembling it,\u201d when it comes to rounding up the remaining positions yet to be filled prior to his mayorship. Stephen Yang for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Scandal-scarred Adams did not seek re-election.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani has ripped him as \u201ccorrupt,\u201d and as leaving a legacy of \u201cdysfunction and inconsistency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor-elect insisted his appointments at this point are on par with prior mayors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we take office on January 1, we will have our cabinet ready to deliver for New Yorkers, and there will obviously be appointments that continue beyond that time \u2014 as it always does under other administrations \u2014 but we will have the people in place necessary to start to deliver, not only on our affordability agenda, but frankly, to deliver on the day to day service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He previously announced the appointments of Dean Fuleihan \u2014 who served under de Blasio \u2014 as his first deputy mayor and Elle Bisgaard-Church, his campaign manager and his Assembly staffer, as his chief of staff.<\/p>\n

Mamdani also appointed CUNY official Sherif Soliman \u2014 who served in the Adams and de Blasio administrations \u2014 as the city budget director<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the mayor-elect tapped Jahmila Edwards, a top official in the city\u2019s District Council 37,\u00a0as the director of intergovernmental relations.<\/p>\n

Julie Su will be deputy mayor for the new post of\u00a0\u201ceconomic justice.\u201d <\/p>\n

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She was acting Labor Secretary under President Biden, but failed to win confirmation from the Senate.<\/p>\n

Sam Lavine will be Mamdani\u2019s commissioner for the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. <\/p>\n

He led the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission under Biden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is scrambling to fill key positions \u2014 as he prepares to take office next week.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":468888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,13239,5289,5705,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-468887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city-hall","10":"tag-eric-adams","11":"tag-mayors","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-us-news","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115774665862665020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}