Wednesday, Jan. 7, marks the seventh day of Zohran Mamdani’s time period as mayor. New York News is following Mamdani round his first 100 days in workplace as we carefully observe his progress on fulfilling marketing campaign guarantees, appointing key leaders to authorities posts, and managing town’s funds. Right here’s a abstract of what the mayor did at present.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday defended his decide to guide town’s revitalized Workplace to Shield Tenants after previous social media posts resurfaced by which the appointee criticized homeownership and known as for decreasing white middle-class wealth.
It comes after one other of Mamdani’s appointees, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, resigned after previous social media posts surfaced that contained antisemitic statements and criticism of the NYPD.
“My focus as Mayor of New York City is to deliver stability, and we know one critical pathway to that stability is homeownership, and I am frankly so grateful to have so many of my former and now current coworkers,” Mamdani stated in response to reporters’ questions at an unrelated press convention in Queens.
Requested about vetting appointees’ social media histories, Mamdani stated he stood by Cea Weaver, pointing to her document of tenant advocacy.
“I accepted Da Costa’s resignation. Cea Weaver is someone that we hired to stand up for tenants across the city based on the track record that she had for standing up for tenants across the city and the state,” Mamdani stated. “And frankly, if you look at the past few days at the work she has done as part of our larger city government approach to the housing crisis in the city you can already see results, the kind of which you haven’t seen for the past few years.”
“The core issue at hand here is, what are we hiring this person to do,” he added. “We are hiring them to stand up for tenants in a way that we haven’t seen before, and that’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Weaver, a nationally acknowledged tenant organizer and housing advocate, has confronted a slew of criticism from principally conservative pundits after social media posts written earlier than 2020 and later eliminated resurfaced.
Within the posts, she described homeownership as a “tool of white supremacy” and argued that the white center class needs to be “made poorer.”
Shortly after the posts started circulating, former Mayor Eric Adams was amongst these important of her views, writing on-line that Weaver was “out of her f***ing mind.”
In response, Weaver advised NY1 that she wouldn’t use the identical language at present.
“I don’t think I’m out of my mind,” she stated. “Some of those things are certainly not how I would say things today, and are regretful. But I do think my decades of experience fighting for more affordable housing stand on their own. I’m proud to be in this role fighting for stronger tenants’ rights.”
“For many years, people have been locked out of the property market — that has produced a lot of systemic and racial inequalities in our system,” Weaver stated. “And I want to make sure that everyone has a safe and affordable place to live, whether they rent or own, and that is something I am laser-focused on in this new role.”
Morris Katz, who served as a senior adviser and strategist throughout Mamdani’s election marketing campaign, additionally backed Weaver in a put up on X Wednesday, saying New York “is lucky to have her serving in city government.”
“Cea Weaver has worked tirelessly to address the housing crisis, protect tenants from bad landlords, and to win a city where no one has to choose between a roof over their head or staying in the place they love,” Katz stated.
Appointments: Affordability and Human Rights
Christine Clarke speaks after Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed her chair and commissioner of the New York Metropolis Fee on Human Rights.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Moreover, on Wednesday, Mayor Mamdani made two extra appointments.
He named Christine Clarke as chair of the Fee on Human Rights to supervise enforcement of town’s Human Rights Legislation. She is going to report back to Deputy Mayor for Financial Justice Julie Su.
Clarke is the Chief of Litigation and Advocacy and a member of the chief group at Authorized Providers NYC, the nation’s largest civil authorized companies group, which supplies authorized help to greater than 100,000 low-income New Yorkers every year, in response to the administration.
She has represented residents in circumstances involving housing subsidies for aged and disabled tenants, entry to residential water companies, language entry for NYCHA tenants, office discrimination, home violence-related housing and employment disputes, and incapacity lodging.
“She has spent her career fighting for working people and using the law as a powerful tool to confront inequity. In the midst of an affordability crisis, Christine will ensure the Commission enforces the law to protect New Yorkers and helps build the city we deserve,” stated Mayor Mamdani.
Mamdani additionally named Simonia Brown, a veteran of New York Metropolis and state authorities, as Senior Advisor for Coverage and Technique. Within the function, Mamdani stated Brown will work with companions in Albany to advance the mayor’s affordability agenda and can report back to the First Deputy Mayor.
Brown has greater than twenty years of expertise in authorities, advising elected officers and negotiating key coverage and finances points. Underneath Mayor Invoice de Blasio, she served as director of town’s State Legislative Affairs Workplace, overseeing town’s legislative and budgetary agenda. She additionally labored on the Workplace of Administration and Finances, the place she managed budgets for the Division of Schooling, the Metropolis College of New York, and town’s 59 neighborhood boards, and led town’s intergovernmental relations unit.
On the state stage, Brown held a number of positions within the New York State Meeting, advising the speaker and meeting management, directing finances evaluation, creating coverage initiatives, and main negotiations on finances and coverage issues.
She extra lately serves as Assistant Deputy Comptroller on the Workplace of the State Comptroller, overseeing native authorities and faculty district funds, together with the distribution of greater than $1 billion yearly and statewide fiscal stress monitoring.
