New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani used the podium at Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute November 10 to announce his two top administration picks — noting the venue’s historical significance for the press conference.
“It is a privilege to be here as we take the next big step forward into our mayoral transition, and it feels fitting to be standing in the very place where FDR shaped his own presidential transition and where he and his team devised the foundation of the New Deal, including Social Security,” Mamdani said in opening his remarks.
He announced that Dean Fuleihan, a former DeBlasio official who is a senior fellow at the CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance, was his choice for first deputy mayor, and named his State Senate chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, as his mayoral chief of staff.
Fuleihan cited the importance of Hunter, CUNY, and Roosevelt House in an interview with The Nation magazine. “It was a great opportunity for me to thank the leadership at both CUNY and the institute, and to remind everybody of the importance of that institution to the fabric of New York,” he told the publication. “It looks like New York City, it helps New York City, it’s incredible, and it’s an amazing institution.”
Mamdani has named two Hunter professors and at least two alumni to his transition.
Political consultant Elana Leopold ’12 is the executive director of the transition team. Hunter lecturer and adviser Jen Gaboury, the first vice president of PSC-CUNY, is on health committee. Urban Policy Professor Nicholas Dagen Bloom and Moses Gates MUP ’08, vice president for housing and neighborhood planning at the Regional Plan Association, were named to the housing committee.
All told, 400 New Yorkers, including 20 CUNY faculty and staffers, serve on the committees.
