Mamdani transition: Mayor-elect noncommittal on keeping public safety deputy mayor role in his administration

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday would not divulge if he plans to keep the position of deputy mayor for public safety in his City Hall.

Mamdani, following a Nov. 11 Veterans’ Day event in the Parkchester section of the Bronx,  sidestepped a reporter’s question as to whether he would continue to have a deputy mayor for public safety — a position instituted by outgoing Mayor Eric Adams at the beginning of his term.

“We continue to have those conversations internally on the question of not only personnel, but also the positions within city government,” Mamdani told a throng of reporters on Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Mamdani continued to dodge questions on when he will meet with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who he has said he wants to retain, about staying in her position when he takes over on Jan. 1.

“I continue to be confident in my decision to retain police Commissioner Tisch and I look forward to the conversations that we will have,” the mayor-elect said.

He also declined to indicate if there are other candidates on his police commissioner short list, should Tisch decide that she does not want to stay past the year’s end.

The mayor-elect’s remarks came a day after he named his picks for his two top City Hall deputies — government veteran Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor and long-time aide Elle Bisgard-Church as chief of staff. Fuleihan, Bisgard-Church, and Mamdani’s transition team, the five leaders of which he named last week, will presumably be determining whether to keep or scrap the Adams-administration era position.

Mamdani was also mum on who he will tap to lead his Department of Community Safety — a new proposed city agency that he hopes will assume some of the NYPD’s current responsibilities. He indicated that his newest appointees would be instrumental in helping to find the agency’s first boss.

“So we will continue to make all deliberations on an assessment of excellence, not on the question of who was appointed by whom, but rather on the work they’re doing,” Mamdani said. “I’m excited to start to put together our city government with First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan and my Chief of Staff Elle Bisgard-Church.”

The deputy mayor for public safety post, currently occupied by New York City Police Department alum Kaz Daughtry, oversees the city agencies including the Fire Department, Department of Correction, and New York City Emergency Management, among others. However, they do not supervise the NYPD, according to the city’s organizational chart.

Daughtry is the third figure in Adams’ administration to hold the position, after his first two deputy mayors for public safety — Phil Banks and Chauncey Parker — resigned.

Banks stepped down last fall after federal agents raided his home and seized his electronic devices as part of a corruption probe. While he was not officially in charge of the NYPD, some reports during Banks’ tenure indicated that he was operating as the “shadow police commissioner.”

Parker then took over for a few months, but resigned earlier this year in protest, along with three other deputy mayors. His decision came in response to President Trump’s Justice Department moving to drop Mayor Adams’ federal bribery case, which many viewed as a quid pro quo.