Zohran Mamdani’s first staff picks show he’s going – Latest News
Don’t anticipate 1st Deputy Mayor-designate Dean Fuleihan to rein in an ounce of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani worst urges: He imposed no such restraint when he labored for Bill de Blasio.
Plus, Zoh’s decide for chief of staff, his longtime proper hand Elle Bisgaard-Church, might be a voice of the identical unreason that’s guided Mamdani’s total political profession thus far.
The drawback being that an assemblyman’s failings simply go with out discover, whereas 8 million New Yorkers endure when a mayor screws up.
Those with a will to drag wool over their eyes will take solace in Fuleihan non-disastrous service as a prime aide to then-Speaker Shelly Silver and different legislative poohbahs, but his time as funds director and 1st deputy underneath Blas confirmed zero fiscal restraint.
It’s not simply that the town funds soared 18% (from $72 billion to $85 billion) on his four-year watch; it’s that the mayor’s most silly pet initiatives all exploded in waste underneath Dean’s supervision.
De Blasio city-run ferries ran a double set of books, reporting $524 million in bills when a comptroller’s audit discovered $758 million; the per-ride subsidy was 50% bigger than reported in Blas’ remaining 12 months.
Fuleihan additionally did not impose any fiscal self-discipline on First Lady Chirlane McCray’s woeful ThriveNYC, which burned $850 million on mental-health packages to no evident benefit to anybody besides the parents they employed.
He additionally oversaw de Blasio’s bogus “Citywide Savings Initiatives” which set apart the long-established PEG guidelines for locating efficiencies for a host of bogus “savings” that centered on re-estimating prices somewhat than reforming operations — and Blas’ ridiculously overoptimistic “replace Rikers” plan, which is now taking twice as long and costing more than twice as a lot to construct (smaller) substitute jails.
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In short, Mamdani tapped a “watchdog” who was a lapdog for de Blasio and could be anticipated to be as dangerous or worse now.
He’s not a lot a green-eyeshades sensible man as a willfully-blinkered outdated idiot.
Meanwhile, the true toughness will come from Bisgaard-Church, the commissar imposing the progressive occasion line on everybody at City Hall.
Various would-be voices of purpose are angling to get accountable varieties into Mamdani’s mind trust, however the new mayor plainly means to have a staff who’ll cheer his step.
In different phrases: It’s full velocity forward . . . till the fairy mud runs out.
