{"id":76170,"date":"2025-12-20T00:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T00:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76170\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T00:35:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T00:35:15","slug":"mamdani-appoints-deputy-mayors-for-housing-economic-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76170\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani appoints deputy mayors for housing, economic justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani named two deputy mayors to his incoming administration on Friday, a day after one of his most recent appointments resigned<\/a> over past antisemitic social media posts.<\/p>\n

Leila Bozorg, Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 current executive director of housing, will serve as Mamdani\u2019s deputy mayor for housing and planning, while former acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su will become deputy mayor for economic justice, the mayor-elect said at a press conference.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Friday named\u00a0Leila Bozorg as his\u00a0deputy mayor for housing and planning and Julie Su as his\u00a0deputy mayor for economic justice, a newly created role
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Bozorg has been a driving force behind Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 \u201cCity of Yes\u201d housing initiative, while\u00a0Su served as\u00a0acting U.S. Secretary of Labor under\u00a0President Joe Biden
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Mamdani’s announcement came\u00a0a day after one of his most recent appointments resigned over past antisemitic social media posts. The mayor elect said his team is making changes to its vetting process<\/p>\n

Su carried out the top Department of Labor role under President Joe Biden. She also served as Deputy Secretary of Labor during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Bozorg has been a driving force behind Adams\u2019 \u201cCity of Yes\u201d housing initiative, which Mamdani previously said<\/a> he considered one of the outgoing mayor\u2019s accomplishments.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I am so proud to appoint two deputy mayors, who will not only work to deliver the affordability agenda that resonated with so many New Yorkers, but will lead the implementation of that new, more expansive approach to governance,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

Before Adams named Bozorg executive director of housing in late 2023, she held several positions at the city and federal level, serving as a city planning commissioner at the city\u2019s Department of City Planning and as senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama, the mayor-elect said in a release.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Leila, New Yorkers will be able to place their trust in a public servant with a proven record of achievement, who has confronted the housing crisis with the urgency it demands,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cI am so eager to work with her to overhaul the housing landscape across our city, provide lower costs for New Yorkers, and make the city somewhere that many are able to call home again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deputy mayor for economic justice role, meanwhile, is a newly created role, Mamdani noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a new position, with a vast remit: to tackle the inequality that too often permeates across our city, to go after unfair labor practices and corporate abuses, and above all, to build a city that puts workers and consumers before profit,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a powerful role, and it demands a leader who has extensive experience fighting and winning on the largest stages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Su\u2019s job will bring several city agencies together, including the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the Taxi and Limousine Commission and the Department of Cultural Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an example, just the other day, the City Council passed legislation that would protect for-hire drivers from the threat of unfair deactivation,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cTo actually fulfill that legislation will require a DCWP that is committed to doing the enforcement work, and a deputy mayor for economic justice that actually brings that to the finish line. That\u2019s one example of what our deputy mayor will be focusing on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s \u201cWorld Cup czar\u201d<\/a> will report to the deputy mayor for economic justice, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat speaks to a vision of an event that could otherwise simply be considered a sporting event or a tourism event, but also an event that will ensure it is deeply connected to the lives of working people across the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s appointments came as the mayor-elect faces questions about his transition team\u2019s vetting process for key administration roles.<\/p>\n

His pick for director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, tendered her resignation<\/a> a day after Mamdani named her to the role and apologized for antisemitic Twitter posts from more than a decade ago that recently came to light.<\/p>\n

Politico reported<\/a> that she made the comments at ages 19 and 20.<\/p>\n

“As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation,” Da Costa said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters after his announcement Friday, Mamdani said his team was \u201ccurrently underway at making changes in our vetting process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur administration will operate under a standard of excellence, and setting that standard is not only about fulfilling it, it\u2019s also about holding yourself accountable when you are not doing so,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are clear changes that need to be made, and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re doing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he was aware of Da Costa\u2019s tweets when he appointed her \u2014 or whether he would have followed through with the appointment had he known \u2014 Mamdani said: \u201cNo on both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not aware of these posts, and I would not have hired her,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani named two deputy mayors to his incoming administration on Friday, a day after one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109,25,14499,9,24,12,56,63,65,64,87,27],"class_list":["post-76170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-maya-rajamani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-politics","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}