Mamdani’s first 100 days: Staffing up

The day after Mamdani was elected mayor, he stood in front of the globe in Flushing Meadows Corona Park alongside the newly announced leaders of his transition team: trusted alums of the Bloomberg, de Blasio and Adams administrations among them. Though those transition team leaders wouldn’t go on to officially join Mamdani’s administration, they symbolized what the young mayor-elect strove for in building out both his City Hall inner circle and agency commissioners: a seasoned, proven, still mostly left-leaning group of professionals. But his success in actually assembling that administration was mixed.

GOOD: The adults are in the room

Contrary to his skeptics and critics’ fears, the Mamdani administration would not be a day care for green socialists. (At least not entirely.) A handful of appointments in particular drew praise and audible sighs of relief in his early days. The decision to keep Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch pacified non-Mamdani voters. The recruitment of septuagenarian Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor instilled trust. But more than just Tisch and Fuleihan, Mamdani has assembled a diverse team – recruiting former federal and White House officials, promoting longtime agency deputies, and bringing an notably large number of de Blasio alums back into the fold – ready to hit the ground running. Like him or not, working for Mamdani appears to be one of the most sought after jobs in government these days.

BAD: You initially forgot a Black deputy mayor

Mamdani’s less-than-resounding support from Black voters in the Democratic mayoral primary last summer sparked a concerted effort to make inroads in Black communities and among Black leaders in the general election. But for the first stretch of his first hundred days, it didn’t look like that would include appointing any Black officials to top leadership positions in City Hall. The New York Times first noted in mid-January that Mamdani had not named any Black deputy mayors to his administration – though they had appointed, and would go on to appoint more, Black commissioners. It wasn’t until late March that Mamdani did so, appointing Renita Francois to the newly created position of deputy mayor for community safety. Just how much authority Francois will have in the brand-new position, however, is still unclear.

UGLY: The tweets resurface

Mamdani’s appointees have garnered plenty of backlash, too. Perhaps none more visibly than Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, whose revolution-minded old tweets became gleeful fodder for the New York Post. But Weaver is still in her job, and leading rental rip-off hearings. Another Mamdani appointee never even made it to City Hall. Mamdani announced in mid-December that Catherine Almonte Da Costa would be his director of appointments. A day later, she resigned after her old antisemitic tweets were brought to light. The incident spurred the transition team to bring in an outside firm to support its candidate vetting process, while Mamdani softened the blow by accepting Da Costa’s resignation swiftly. But it’s hardly been the end of Mamdani and his appointees’ past social media posts coming back to haunt them.