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Photo: Richard Drew/Getty Images

In a matter of weeks, Zohran Mamdani will become the youngest mayor to lead the city in generations, after securing his victory through a campaign centered around affordability that vowed to put an end to politics as usual, despite his youth and inexperience. Now that Mamdani is taking steps to build his incoming administration, his initial appointments show that he will lean on established political veterans to enact his ambitious vision and that he’s open to appointees far outside his coalition, even those who may hold opposing views.

As part of his first official staffing choices as mayor-elect, Mamdani named 74-year old Albany veteran Dean Fuleihan as his first deputy mayor, a job Fuleihan also held during Bill de Blasio’s tenure. Alongside that move, Mamdani announced that his campaign manager Elle Bisgaard-Church would be his chief of staff, the same job she had in his Assembly office.

This didn’t surprise Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “I thought it was essentially what he had promised, which will be a mixture of the old guard and the new guard,” she said in an interview. “Obviously Dean Fuleihan, who’s respected across a wide spectrum, represents the old guard. He’s worked in several administrations in different capacities. And then elevating his chief of staff— not just age wise, but experience wise — sort of opening up the door for a new generation of leadership in New York City.”

Mamdani’s appointment of Fuleihan has received widespread praise within the city’s political scene due to his decades of experience in both City Hall and the state capitol where a mayor’s agenda can either live or die by Albany’s hand. His experience as de Blasio’s budget director will undoubtedly be valuable, too, since the mayor-elect will soon be tasked with managing a budget larger than some nations’ GDPs while also seeking to implement policy initiatives with hefty price tags such as universal child care and free city buses.

Even Joe Borelli, the former leader of the City Council’s Republican caucus and onetime assemblyman, applauded Mamdani’s choice. “This is a good move. Dean is a serious person. Will be a steady hand,” he wrote on social media.

Mamdani has also announced that Jessica Tisch, the current NYPD commissioner, will stay on in her role leading the nation’s largest police department. On Wednesday, Mamdani officially introduced Tisch as his new commish, saying in a statement that he looks forward to working with her “to deliver genuine public safety in New York City.”

While NYPD commissioner has long been considered one of the most significant appointments of a mayor’s administration, that decision took on even greater significance this election cycle. Mamdani has come under fire for his past tweets criticizing the NYPD, sentiments that he disavowed during the campaign and that he has said arose out of the turmoil of George Floyd’s 2020 murder. While Mamdani has praised Tisch for her efforts to tackle corruption in the upper ranks of the department, the two figures appear deeply at odds over key public safety positions with Tisch opposed to recent cash bail reforms and the state’s “Raise the Age” law which ended the prosecution of 16 and 17-year-olds as adults. The mayor-elect has also vowed to create a Department of Public Safety, a new agency that will help handle New Yorkers suffering from mental illness and divert many of those calls from police officers to dedicated crisis teams, a move that will require significant buy-in from Tisch.

Tisch’s appointment has been seen by many as a direct overture from Mamdani to the more moderate blocs and sectors of the city electorate who were more apprehensive of his candidacy. Alicia Glen, the former deputy mayor for housing and economic development under de Blasio, believes Mamdani will benefit from reaching beyond his coalition to staff his administration. She cited her decade of work for Goldman Sachs prior to joining City Hall.

“I experienced this myself firsthand when Bill de Blasio was elected and most people thought that he was this crazy communist socialist and the world was going to end, that he would destroy business and all the stuff you hear in the ether. And he was, I think most people argued, smart enough to try to find somebody like me who had a background both in the public sector and had spent a long period of time in the private sector and had relationships, but also shared his values and what he was trying to get done,” Glen said. “I do think such people exist and it’s really important because you’ve got to do this thing for at least four years and you don’t want to deliberately alienate hugely important sectors of New York’s economy or civically, It’s just bad politics. You’re not going to get as much done.”

Throughout the campaign, Mamdani was forced to contend with a frequent refrain from his critics: how can a young, three-term state legislator run the nation’s largest city with its hundreds of thousands of government workers and sprawling number of agencies? The then-candidate alluded to the concerns in a winking video tied to his 34th birthday. “I’m committing that for every single day from here on out, I will grow older. It’s not something I ever wanted to do, but I know it matters to you. So, I am,” he said in a faux-serious tone.

But as concerns about his experience persisted, Mamdani sought advice from numerous veterans of the political scene, meeting with alums from past administrations. He had the ear of those close to de Blasio — who Mamdani touted as the best mayor in his lifetime and who later endorsed his candidacy. In September, he even sat down with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent millions of dollars backing his competitor in the race, former Governor Andrew Cuomo. A Mamdani spokesman described the meeting to the New York Times as “candid and productive.”

To Elizabeth Glazer, the former director of the office of criminal justice under de Blasio, Mamdani’s appointments so far demonstrate that he understands the need for public servants “deeply versed in governance.” She said his more-seasoned picks will allow the mayor-elect to hit the ground running once sworn in, a necessity for leading a city that will likely find itself at odds with the Trump administration almost instantly.

“His mayoralty needs to start the day after the election. He has to use the transition time to start governing because, on January 1 — and maybe even before — we’re in a position in which there is a federal government who has signaled that they’re hostile to this particular mayor and cities in general and he needs to be ready,” Glazer said. “And, to be ready means to understand how to govern, how to work with all the different other components that he’s going to have to draw together and how to lead the city through very difficult times, both politically and economically.”

Though an announcement is likely weeks away, Glazer says a key appointment in warding off the Trump White House will be who ultimately leads the city’s Law Department, the agency that represents the city government in civil litigation and which Mamdani has vowed to bolster back to its pre-pandemic staffing levels.

“I actually think that one of the most important appointments that he’s going to make, in light of the threats from Trump and what we’ve seen going on in other cities, is going to be the corporation council. Somebody who can play the role of a wartime consigliere,” she said. “It’s not just about bringing suits or it’s not just about the law. It’s about politics and figuring out how to bring together many parts of New York City and New York City’s civil society to think about the future of the city in connection with the kinds of threats that the feds are making to us. I think that’s going to be a very important appointment and it needs to be somebody who is deft and nimble and inventive and serious.”

Mamdani’s relationship with Albany will be key to his ability to achieve his sizable policy goals including his campaign promise to jump start the creation of 200,000 affordable homes within the next ten years. He will enter City Hall with a far more favorable relationship with the governor than mayors past. Governor Kathy Hochul, who is far more moderate, endorsed Mamdani in September and gestured to common policy goals on housing and child care.

Glen, who led de Blasio’s “Housing for New York” initiative, sees Mamdani’s housing goals as attainable, but said the mayor-elect shouldn’t shy away from smaller, quality of life fixes in addition to his longer term plans. “He could have 10,000 more units of affordable housing, with heads in their beds, in the first six months of his administration if they made some changes in how the current processes work. There’s just so much good low-hanging fruit and he should be doing those things right away because while you’re working on the big issues in Albany and dealing with Trump and all that other stuff, you really want to show your base and show the housers that you getting elected mattered,” she said.

The former deputy mayor also noted that while Mamdani won’t have to contend with a more contentious gubernatorial relationship, he will also enter City Hall with his own Albany experience under his belt. “He knows assemblymembers. He knows how the sausage is made,” Glen said.

As Mamdani staffs up, the demand to join his future administration is already high. His transition team announced last week that it has received 50,000 applicants to its resume portal, a figure that is likely to rise. Greer hopes that the administration’s melding of old and new will bring with it new opportunities for mentorship and passing the baton to up-and-coming political leaders.

“I think that this, in a lot of ways, is going to be a bridge administration as well for a lot of folks who are kind of in a quasi-sunset to really impart some wisdom and some strategies to a younger generation of future leaders of New York City,” she said.

What Mamdani’s Staffing Choices Say About How He’ll Govern

What Mamdani’s Staffing Choices Say About How He’ll Govern