Welcome to the Zohran-Free Zone: Make Mamdani Mad And You’re Iced Out of the Conversation

Coalition leaders critical of the Mamdani administration hold a rally in front of the City Hall steps on Friday, April 10 Photos/Joe Maniscalco

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By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is celebrating his first 100 days in office with some favorable poll numbers and national headlines touting his “unique star power.” Underneath it all, however, Hizzoner has demonstrated an established pattern of simply ignoring inconvenient groups that threaten to undermine the social media confection he and his administration have carefully curated for mass consumption.

Those New Yorkers relegated to the Zohran-free Zone, include municipal retirees fighting for vital legislation to protect their healthcare; elderly home health aides struggling to end mandatory round-the-clock shifts and institutionalized wage theft; NYCHA tenants pushing back hard against the demolition of their neighborhoods and the demise of public housing as we know it—and yes, even the reporters at Work-Bites doing our level best to chronicle all of these ongoing battles.

And we’re not talking about getting a “sorry, no comment.” After 100 days in office, Mayor Mamdani and his administration have yet to respond to—or even acknowledge—a single request for comment coming from Work-Bites about any of the issues above.

The truth about the Zohran-free Zone was further borne out on Friday, April 10 at City Hall where a small coalition of grassroots leaders critical of Mamdani and his nascent administration talked about how they, too, have been iced out of any conversations with the new Mayor.

Community activist Nupol Kiazolu denounces efforts to cap the City FHEPS rental assistance program.

Ramona Ferreyra, Save Section 9 founder, Rev. Kevin McCall, Kingdom Justice Church pastor, and Frank Garcia, National Association of Hispanic State Chambers of Commerce chair, and others all talked about their experience with Mayor Mamdani’s empty rhetoric and complete unresponsiveness.

If on cue at one point during Friday’s rally on the City Hall steps—Cea Weaver, head of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, attempted to skirt by the demonstrators unnoticed.

“Cea Weaver—tell the mayor keep his promise!” the demonstrators shouted to Weaver as she waved and continued walking out of City Hall Park. “Tell the mayor to fund NYCHA!”

“See how they walk away?” Garcia said. “This is the disrespect—that’s who’s representing us.”

Rev. Kevin McCall says New Yorkers need more than smiles out of Mayor Mamdani.

Rev. McCall said that members of the coalition were among the “1.1 million people who decided to give a young, energetic person that likes to smile a lot—a person that didn’t have any city government experience—a chance by voting for him.”

“We believe in the promises and the leadership that he said that he was gonna do for the 1.1 New Yorkers, for the millions of people in New York City,” Rev. McCall said. “But we saw that in these 100 days all we got was 100 smiles—all we got was 100 broken promises.”

Nupol Kiazolu, a community activist from Brooklyn pushing back against efforts to cap the CityFHEPS rental assistance program, said that whether or not you like Mamdani is not the issue.

“The key issue here is that we have to ensure that he is held accountable as Mayor, because he’s no long a candidate, and that he is keeping key electoral promises that he ran on, like CityFHEPS,” Kiazolu said. “There is so much more advocacy work that needs to be done. We have to remind him it’s not enough—and Black and Brown New Yorkers, specifically—need more. People on the margins need more. Capping CityFHEPS is going to push us back. You can’t run on affordability and run on improving the housing crisis when you’re attempting to cap programs that have changed the lives of thousands of families.”

Frank Garcia, National Association of Hispanic State Chambers of Commerce chair, demanded a meeting with Mayor Mamdani during a rally in front of the City Hall steps on April 10.

Ferreyra further chastised Mayor Mamdani and Weaver for encouraging tenants at the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses on Manhattan’s west side to allow the demolition of their communities and to accept “economic apartheid” and gentrification.

“The Mayor cannot claim to be progressive, he cannot claim to be a socialist—he cannot claim that public goods are used for the public good while demolishing and privatizing Section 9 public housing,” Ferreyra said.

Work-Bites has made repeated attempts to reach the Mayor’s Office for comment on this story. Those requests have all gone unacknowledged and ignored.

“I thought NYC Retirees were the only segment of the Mayor’s constituency being ignored,” Marianne Pizzitola, president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees,” told Work-Bites this week. “I’m glad to see I’m in good company—but disappointed to see the list is growing. The mayor has spoken to Donald Trump, Curtis Sliwa, John Catsimatidis—he even called geese on the street his constituents and asked them how they were doing. The rest of us get ignored. I guess when he can’t look you in the eye, he has to ignore you. We ran this City—we could surely be an asset to him.”

Work-Bites will update this story if and when the Mayor’s Office ever acknowledges our requests for comment.