Mayor Mamdani announced a new Office of Mass Engagement Friday to foster community participation as he looks to retain the grassroots momentum that helped him win in November.
The mayor, who was formally sworn in at a chilly New Years Day ceremony on Thursday, said he wants New Yorkers to help him in advocating for his affordability agenda.
“Democracy works best when people are not treated as an audience, but as an active part of it. Governing demands the same,” Mamdani said at a Grand Army Plaza press conference announcing the office, echoing a call to action for his supporters that he also hammered on during his inauguration speech.
The democratic socialist mayor said the office will organize “participation” across the five boroughs and collect public feedback, especially targeting those often “excluded” from city politics. Mamdani’s campaign field director Tascha Van Auken will head the office.
During his campaign, Mamdani organized out-of-the-box events that emphasized building community among his supporters like a scavenger hunt and a soccer tournament.
“The Office of Mass Engagement is about taking that ethos and making it part of how government works,” Van Auken said.
Van Auken, a longtime organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America group that Mamdani also calls his political home, oversaw the mayor’s field operation of more than 100,000 volunteers in both the primary and general election. She previously ran other local progressive campaigns and worked for the Blue Man Group.
The new office will essentially reorganize the Community Affairs Unit, whose employees were some of the first told by the Mamdani transition they would not have jobs in the new administration. The office will oversee the already-existing Public Engagement Unit, Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, NYC Service and the Civic Engagement Commission.
Mamdani on Friday also appointed Ali Najmi, an election lawyer and longtime friend, to lead his Advisory Committee on the Judiciary, which recruits and recommends judges for family and criminal courts and interim appointees for civil courts.
Najmi has called Mamdani his “brother” and the mayor once knocked doors for Najmi’s unsuccessful bid for City Council in 2015.
In an accompanying executive order, Mamdani directed the Judiciary Advisory Committee to regularly publish demographic data and information on upcoming appointments and to work with public defenders when putting forward recommendations for new judges. He also doubled the length of committee members’ terms from two years to four.
“I am committed to making our judicial selection process more transparent and inclusive to ensure that all 8.5 million New Yorkers see themselves reflected on the bench,” Najmi said in a statement.
It’s unclear whether the new structure will bring back an oversight role over the appointment process hold by the New York City Bar Association, which was axed by former Mayor Adams in late 2024. Asked by the Daily News about this on Friday, Mamdani said he would “get back” about this.
