Posted on 11/10/2025 8:35:40 AM PST by DFG
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has tapped a 74-year-old former high-ranking de Blasio administration official and longtime budget guru as his top City Hall advisor.
The appointment of Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor marks the first major staffing decision for the incoming Mamdani administration that wants to spend more than $10 billion on a lofty socialist agenda while facing down a nearly $5 billion budget gap.
Fuleihan, who is more than twice the age of the 34-year-old socialist lawmaker, also served as then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first deputy mayor and had been advising Mamdani on his campaign.
“I think that Dean is in a position to serve any mayoral administration,” said Emma Wolfe, ex-top advisor to de Blasio. “Given his background in fiscal and policy, I think he’ll be a valuable public official.”
The veteran city and state government official got his start in the late 1970s as then-State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s budget chief.
He was appointed as the city’s budget director in 2013 and lauded by de Blasio at the time as a “true progressive” following a more than three-decade run in Albany.
Over his four-year stint, New York City’s budget surged from $72 billion to $85 billion, with some members of the City Council ripping the administration for not saving enough to navigate cuts under a Trump presidency.
The septuagenarian public servant re-enters Big Apple politics at a similar time as both the city and state anxiously awaits the effects of the impending federal funding cuts that could severely hinder Mamdani’s $10 billion in campaign promises, in the form of free buses and universal child care.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They always go with the Same Old ,LOL
Same as CA.
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Surprise!! Obama as deputy top official?
And that didn't make NYC "affordable"? Huh.
I will open it up at $362 Billion. Who will bid $365?
When a Republican congress refuses to underwrite this bizarre socialist’s fantasies, the shrieks and wails of “racism” will be deafening.
Even if the GOP loses control of Congress in 2026, Trump’s veto will stop federal money from bailing out NYC.
So it will be interesting to see if New York State comes to Mamdani’s rescue instead after he bankrupts the place.
“Trump’s veto will stop federal money from bailing out NYC”
The Trump Organization still owns property in that city, I suspect.
LOL. So Mamdani is going to be the tired, old, hated de Blasio Administration with a young, Woke, Muslim face.
Budget guru?
Oy
International jihadis have no shortage of money. Billions and billions.
“President Trump had a Navy hospital ship with the capacity to house 500 to 1,000 patients sent to New York. Unfortunately, virtually no covid patients were sent to the ship by New York government officials. Mayor Bill de Blasio explained “I didn’t think it would be good optics to let Trump be credited as some sort of savior for the ill. At the time the narrative we were working on was that Trump was too incompetent to deal with the pandemic.’”
https://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php?topic=570006.0
I’m not able to verify the comment quoted.
Ali Baba has 39 job openings.
The thought occurred to me that Mamdani might be only a figurehead, that he will be Mayor the same way Biden was POTUS, which was not at all.
If that's true, is it a bad thing?
Lebanese. Not sure if Muslim or Christian.
I don’t know why Hochul would agree to that considering that Mandami is probably gunning for her job.
“Mayor Zo! We know just the right person to head your budget committed. He’s experienced. meaning. he knows how to Cook Those Books for his Boss!”
It looks that way.
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