Monday, Jan. 12, marks the twelfth 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 Monday introduced Rafael Espinal as the brand new commissioner of the Mayor’s Workplace of Media and Leisure, and signaled one other break with the earlier administration by withdrawing proposed “hostile” press credential guidelines that his predecessor, Eric Adams, launched.
The announcement got here throughout a press convention at Samson Phases in Pink Hook, Brooklyn, the place Mamdani framed the inventive industries as central to New York Metropolis’s identification, economic system, and labor future, whereas responding on to reporters’ questions concerning the Adams administration’s final-hour proposal to overtake Metropolis Corridor press badge laws.
On his final day in workplace, former mayor Adams proposed new guidelines that may have tightened credentialing requirements and expanded town’s authority to droop or revoke press badges, making it harder for impartial journalists to acquire a press cross with one of many proposed guidelines in search of to “require applicants to be either employed by or affiliated with a ‘media platform’ or be a member of a journalism association.”
Mayor Mamdani, who has extensively embraced new media and held his first Blue Room press convention with them final week, mentioned Monday that his administration “will be withdrawing those proposed rules.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced the appointment of Rafael Espinal as Commissioner of the New York Metropolis Mayor’s Workplace of Media and Leisure (MOME)Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
He added that the administration considered the laws as essentially hostile to press entry. “Much of the reason for that, we view a number of these proposals being an attack on the press,” Mamdani mentioned.
Pressed by a reporter to elucidate what particularly the administration discovered objectionable, Mamdani mentioned, “When going through a number of the different specific proposals, we just see time and again that the intent is not to strengthen whether the public’s accessible information or even the way in which we work with the press corps.”
“More felt as if it was an intent to tighten and restrict the press’s ability to engage with the mayor’s office,” he added, “and that is not something that we want to do.”
Former mayor Adams was again in NYC Monday to launch a brand new digital coin that he says will assist fund training and consciousness packages on anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.
Mamdani mentioned he wouldn’t be buying Adams’ crypto token in response to a reporter’s query, and likewise declined to have interaction instantly with Adams’ public criticism of the brand new administration, saying he would “depart the previous mayor to reply…that query.’
Appointments: Espinal again in metropolis authorities
The coverage reversal got here alongside the appointment of Rafael Espinal, the manager director of the Freelancers Union and a former Brooklyn Metropolis Council member, to move the company that oversees movie, tv, and industrial manufacturing within the metropolis.
In his opening remarks, Mamdani emphasised the cultural and financial significance of the trade, describing New York as a metropolis whose world picture has been formed by what’s created on its streets and levels. He repeatedly highlighted the function of union labor, describing actors, writers, stagehands, digicam operators, make-up artists, and technicians as central to town’s identification.
“This city that treasures the arts, that invests in the arts, that makes it possible for artists and all who contribute to making New York’s entertainment industry to live lives of creativity,” Mamdani mentioned.
Rafael Espinal was appointed the brand new Commissioner of the New York Metropolis Mayor’s Workplace of Media and Leisure (MOME)Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
He tied the administration’s arts agenda on to affordability, saying Metropolis Corridor was confronting the cost-of-living disaster in order that inventive staff might “raise their children here,” “afford studios and homes here,” and “take fast and free buses to shoots here.”
“But we don’t want our efforts to be limited solely to making New York affordable for those making the arts,” Mamdani mentioned. “We also want to make New York affordable to make the arts as well.”
Mamdani mentioned Rafael’s background made him uniquely suited to the function, citing his expertise in elected workplace and his management on the Freelancers Union, in addition to his function in advancing town’s Freelance Isn’t Free Act, which strengthened protections for impartial staff.
“For many New Yorkers… Rafael’s name is synonymous with fierce advocacy for the love of this city and with a commitment of uplifting those too often forgotten by our politics,” Mamdani mentioned.
Espinal, who grew up in East New York, used his remarks to explain how movie and tv formed his childhood and impressed him to begin making brief movies on the age of 13 — at the same time as he struggled to see a transparent pathway right into a inventive profession.
“Growing up on the edges of our city, I didn’t see a clear pipeline into a real career in the creative industries,” he mentioned, including that he repeatedly heard the message that artists wanted a backup plan.
He framed his appointment as a possibility to shut that hole for future generations.
“I’ll work to keep New York the creative capital of the world,” Espinal mentioned, “not just a place where great work gets made, but a place where the people who make that work can actually live it.”
Espinal, aligning his agenda carefully with the mayor’s affordability platform, emphasised labor partnerships, union jobs, and entry to coaching and advantages as central priorities of the workplace.
“I wanted to join the administration because it’s all a government approach to affordability,” he mentioned. “Because if New York is unaffordable, we don’t just lose residents, we lose our culture.”
Metropolis Council Speaker Julie Menin, who beforehand served as commissioner of the MOME below Mayor Invoice de Blasio, additionally spoke in help of Espinal’s appointment, underscoring the trade’s financial significance.
“It’s a $104 billion industry with over 305,000 jobs,” Menin mentioned, including that there are “actually more jobs in New York City in media and entertainment than there are in the financial center.”
Menin pointed to Espinal’s work on the Freelance Isn’t Free Act, town’s Freelancers Hub, and the creation of the Workplace of Nightlife as proof of his means to bridge labor coverage and inventive industries.
This can be a creating story. Verify again for updates.
