Mamdani announces veteran transition team as he makes plans to carry out an ambitious agenda for NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — Fresh off his historic victory in New York City’s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday announced a slate of seasoned officials to help lead his transition to City Hall, offering an early glimpse at how he intends to turn his ambitious campaign promises into reality.

“In the coming months, I and my team will build a City Hall capable of delivering on the promises of this campaign,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist, said at his first news conference as mayor-elect. “We will form an administration that is equal parts capable and compassionate, driven by integrity and willing to work just as hard as the millions of New Yorkers who call this city home.”

That transition team will include two former deputy mayors, Maria Torres-Springer and Melanie Hartzog; former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan; and Grace Bonilla, the head of United Way of New York City, a nonprofit focused on low-income residents. Political strategist Elana Leopold will serve as executive director of the team.

Mamdani said the officials would help steer his transition as he adapts from the “poetry of campaigning” to the “beautiful prose of governing,” a winking reference to a phrase used by former Gov. Mario Cuomo, the late father of one of his opponents in the mayoral race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The incoming mayor said he had not yet heard from Andrew Cuomo since defeating him on Tuesday night in a race that saw the highest turnout for a New York City mayoral election in more than five decades. He said he had spoken by phone with his Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa.

Mamdani, who at 34 will be the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century, now faces the task of implementing his sweeping affordability agenda, while taking charge of the largest police department, sanitation department and school system in the country.

Among his campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would expand on an existing city initiative that sends mental health care workers, rather than police, to handle certain emergency calls.