MAMDANI’S FIRST 100 DAYS: Mayor, Speaker Menin unite to open long-delayed child care center as property tax dispute looms

Thursday, Feb. 19, marks the 50th day of Zohran Mamdani’s term as mayor. amNewYork is following Mamdani around his first 100 days in office as we closely track his progress on fulfilling campaign promises, appointing key leaders to government posts, and managing the city’s finances. Here’s a summary of what the mayor did.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin appeared side by side Thursday morning to announce the opening of a long-delayed early childhood education center on the Upper East Side, offering a moment of alignment amid deeper, growing divisions over the city budget and proposed protest restriction legislation.

The Feb. 19 announcement marked the official opening of the District 2 Pre-K and 3-K Center at 403 East 65th St., a former parking garage completed in July 2025 that had sat unused for months under the prior administration. The center will open this fall, according to the mayor, adding more than 130 seats and becoming the first standalone, city-run early childhood education facility in the 10065 ZIP code.

Officials said the center will quadruple 3-K capacity and double Pre-K capacity in the neighborhood, addressing a longstanding shortage that had forced families either to travel outside the area or pay for private child care. Families have until Feb. 27 to apply for seats.

“While New York City families waited anxiously for child care options near their homes, the last administration refused to move with the urgency this crisis demands,” Mamdani said. “In the wealthiest city in the world, no parent should be forced to choose between raising their child and keeping their job.”

Menin praised the opening as a “big win” for families and credited years of pressure from Community Board 8 and local parents. “The building has been ready, and families have been waiting,” she said, calling the delays under the previous administration unacceptable.

“This is really a sign of what we need to do city wide, to open up more child care facilities, to make sure that every single parent that needs a slot for 3k and pre K has it,” Speaker Menin added.

Protests and NYPD

Menin and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal spoke early in the event and left before the press conference’s Q&A, which would focus on issues where the mayor and the Council speaker are not currently aligned.

Among them: proposed legislation introduced by Menin through the City Council’s newly formed Committee to Combat Hate. The bill would require the NYPD to develop and implement fixed security perimeters of up to 100 feet around entrances and exits of places of religious worship. A separate, closely related bill sponsored by Bronx City Council Member Eric Dinowitz would apply the same framework to educational facilities.

In response to the staggering number of antisemitic hate crimes reported across the city, Menin, the Council’s first Jewish Speaker, rolled out a five-point plan last month to combat antisemitism, which includes the protest perimeter bill to protect congregants, creating a dedicated antisemitism reporting hotline, funding security at private schools, and providing community-based security training for Jewish organizations.

The introduction Menin’s protest legislation was a direct result of two separate and widely condemned demonstrations near synagogues in Manhattan and Queens. Her bill followed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s support for similar legislation during her State of the State address which would ban protests within 25 feet of houses of worship.

Mayor Mamdani on Thursday said that NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has expressed concerns about the proposed buffer zone legislations, apparently what City & State had reported.

A spokesperson for the NYPD also confirmed that Commissioner Tisch raised issued with the initial drafting of the bills, “and she is working closely with the speaker’s office to ensure that the language of the bill maintains the NYPD’s flexibility to both protect houses of worship and facilitate first amendment rights.” The bill is due to be discussed at a council hearing on Feb. 25.

Mamdani said he has also directed the city’s Law Department and the NYPD to review its legality.

“I care deeply about ensuring that New Yorkers can worship freely in their own city, and that we also protect the First Amendment rights to protest at the same time,” Mamdani said, stopping short of endorsing the legislation.

“We are expanding the amount of funding for our office to combat anti-Semitism, and we are also looking to utilize every tool at our disposal to ensure that we root out bigotry from across the five boroughs,” the mayor added.

A spokesperson for the Speaker’s office said Menin has had “multiple productive conversations with Commissioner Tish and the commissioner had a few minor tweaks to the bill which will be included in a new version.” They did not clarify what those tweaks entail.

The mayor has already taken steps to balance the rights to protest and worship. Last month, he quietly reinstated an Adams-era executive order he had previously revoked: one that directed the NYPD to better regulate protests outside houses of worship, including synagogues.

Photo by Lloyd Mitchell

A separate Adams-era directive to increase the NYPD’s uniformed headcount by 5,000 officers amid a growing staffing crisis was officially shelved by Mamdani in his preliminary budget on Tuesday.

Before being elected Mayor, then-candidate Mamdani said he had no intention of following through on the plan outlined in Adams’ November budget outline, and instead committed to maintaining the NYPD headcount as it is.

In his $127 billion preliminary budget, the NYPD’s allocation is slated to go from roughly $6.4 billion this year to around $6.38 billion in 2027. After that slight decline, projected spending would rise again, reaching nearly $6.44 billion by 2030.

The budget plan sets aside $421 million to plug funding gaps the administration says were overlooked, such as mounting overtime costs within the police department, upgrading an aging fleet of squad cars, and paying for expanding and maintaining high-tech monitoring systems

The department has lost an average of 316 officers per month in 2025 due to retirements and resignations, and its current headcount is below the budgeted levels.

When asked about the pushback against not increasing he headcount, Mamdani said he is focused on addressing the department’s retention crisis, trying to reduce the “expanding number of responsibilities we’ve given to those officers.”

Mamdani said his proposed Department of Community Safety was one way to shift the many responsibilities from officers and address overtime, noting that police are currently dispatched to roughly 200,000 mental health–related calls. Funding for the proposed Department is not included in the preliminary budget but will be added to the executive budget expected in late April, according to the mayor.

Property tax

To eliminate the current budget gap, Mamdani on Tuesday outlined two options: secure Albany’s approval to raise taxes on top earners and corporations, or — if that effort falls short — turn to measures the city controls, such as a 9.5% property tax increase and tapping reserves. He described the property tax hike as a “last resort.”

However, both approaches face steep obstacles. Gov. Kathy Hochul has firmly rejected new taxes as she campaigns for reelection, and Speaker Julie Menin has also dismissed the idea of raising property taxes.

Menin’s appearance with Mamdani on Thursday followed an interview the day earlier on the right-wing radio show of Sid Rosenberg on WABC Radio, where she criticized Mamdani’s preliminary budget proposal. Rosenberg has drawn criticism in the past, having labeled Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, a “terrorist” and claiming during the campaign that he would be “cheering” another 9/11.

Since the unveiling of his preliminary budget, Menin has said that potential property tax hikes should not be discussed amid the current affordability crisis. Speaking to Rosenberg on Wednesday, she emphasized that the City Council has the final say over property taxes and made clear it will not approve any hike.

Menin said shifting additional costs onto small homeowners and businesses during an affordability crunch is unacceptable, and “either dipping into the rainy day reserves or proposing any kind of property tax increase is not on the table for us.”

Asked by a Politico reporter about Menin’s appearance on Rosenberg’s show after his Islamophobic comments about Hizzoner, Mamdani said he would let the Speaker answer that.

A spokesperson for the Speaker’s office said Menin’s appearance on Rosenberg’s show was one of many media hits she did that day to discuss the budget but that she “vehemently disagrees” with the hosts views and past remarks about the Mayor.

“Speaker Menin vehemently disagrees with Sid Rosenberg on a whole range of topics. She strongly condemns his Islamophobic rhetoric. She appeared on WABC radio, as well as numerous outlets, to speak to New Yorkers about the impact of the city budget,” the spokesperson said.

Separately, Commissioner Tisch reportedly met Rosenberg for dinner last month, according to the Daily News.