Public Servants, A Media Publisher, And DAs: A Look At Eric Adams’s Massive Transition Team

Mayor-elect Eric Adams on Election Night. In the background is Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz (l) and Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, who have joined his transition team.

Mayor-elect Eric Adams has appointed a cadre of policy wonks, lawmakers, and nonprofit CEOs from various fields to his near 800-person transition team, which include members of Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg’s mayoral administrations, according to a list released by Adams on Friday. The hope, according to a spokesperson, is to ensure Adams is primed to ”deliver for New Yorkers on Day 1.”

A spokesperson for Adams released the names of the transition team on Friday, with 20 committees ranging from health, public safety, food policy, education, and infrastructure. The hope behind the transition team, according to his spokesperson, is to ensure he's prepared to work when he's sworn in next month.

“Each committee has been tasked with a specific set of goals and responsibilities to ensure we are ready to lead on Day 1,” Adams said in a statement. “If we are going to tackle the many challenges in front of us as a city, the advocacy, nonprofit and business worlds must all be at the same table, working in collaboration--and that is exactly what this transition is doing. And the transition of this city to a safer, healthier, more prosperous New York will continue after January 1st—so I hope to continue to lean on this group of experts and advocates after I have taken office.”

Other names on the list include Luis Miranda, a founding member of the lobbying group MirRam, and Vicki Schneps, the publisher behind amNewYork/Metro and a frequent booster of Adams in her line of community papers. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney-elect, has also joined the transition team, as well as his counterparts in the other four boroughs.

Some committees are more robust than others. For instance, while the communications committee is comprised of 13 people, the education committee is comprised of more than 100 members. Leading the committee is Saskia Thompson and David Banks, rumored to be considered for schools chancellor. Several lawmakers have also joined the team, including outgoing New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Manhattan/Bronx Rep. Adriano Espaillat, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who's set to retire.

The transition team also includes former members of de Blasio and Bloomberg’s respective administrations. They include Janette Sadik-Khan, who served as transportation commissioner under Bloomberg and is now on Adams’s Infrastructure, Climate & Sustainability Committee. J. Phillip Thompson, a current deputy mayor for de Blasio, is on the Equity Committee.

Sheena Wright, the president and CEO of the United Way of New York City, serves as the president of the transition team. In an interview on WNYC several weeks ago, Wright said "healthy tension" has existed among the committees looking to ensure the right policies are adopted.

“What we’re really trying to drill down during this transition is really refining those priorities and getting much more specific about the steps that’ll take to G-S-D—get stuff done,“ Wright said, saying she hopes it will make Adams be intentional in really “moving the needle for the city of New York.”