Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani listens to a reporter’s query throughout a press convention in Manhattan on Dec. 22, 2025.
REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced on Wednesday that Julia Kerson might be his new Deputy Mayor for Operations. Kerson is presently a deputy to the state director of operations, the place she manages housing, financial improvement, power, surroundings and transportation departments.
Beforehand, she labored on the MTA the place she helped lead main tasks together with Section 2 of the Second Avenue Subway. She additionally served on town’s COVID-19 Response Workforce, serving to to ascertain a resort program for healthcare staff and people in want of a protected quarantine area, and negotiating and managing contracts for resort acquisition and operation.
As a part of her new position, Kerson will oversee the Division of Environmental Safety, the Division of Parks and Recreation, the Division of Sanitation, the Division of Transportation (DOT), and New York Metropolis Emergency Administration.
Mamdani stated he’ll work carefully with Kerson to handle points in NYC that fall below her realm, together with local weather change and affordability.
“To deliver safe roads, clean streets, and fast buses, we need a Deputy Mayor of Operations who is experienced, hungry, and tireless in the pursuit of public excellence,” the mayor-elect stated in a press launch. “Julia Kerson has spent years delivering good-paying jobs, billions in economic productivity, and high-quality public infrastructure at the state level, and I am honored to have her join us to deliver the affordability agenda alongside us in City Hall.”
Mamdani is predicted to additionally announce Mike Flynn on Wednesday as the brand new commissioner of the DOT, sources near the matter informed New York News. Flynn would change the present division commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez.
Flynn is a member of the outstanding NYC transit advocacy group, the Riders Alliance.
Betsy Plum, govt director of the Riders Alliance, stated each administrative picks will assist encourage extra group engagement to enhance security and affordability with the transit system.
“This moment calls for a new way of engaging communities, one rooted in real organizing, where New Yorkers are partners in shaping bold, city-defining investments that make our neighborhoods safer, more affordable, and more connected,” Plum stated, including that the alliance is raring to work with a brand new DOT that can ship on “stalled projects” from the present administration.
Plum additionally stated that Mamdani’s name free of charge buses ought to be highlighted on the administration’s priorities checklist as a plan to place into motion.
“Fast and free buses can’t be an aspiration tucked behind competing priorities. They must be the measure of success. A city that works for bus riders is a city that works for everyone, and we’ll be looking to this administration to make that standard real and to hold the entire system accountable for getting riders where they need to go, quickly and reliably.”
New York News contacted Mamdani’s transition workforce for remark Flynn’s appointment, and is awaiting a response.
