Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced an official review of the city’s charter focused on government efficiency and also dissolved the charter commission announced in the final hours of former Mayor Eric Adams’ term.
The cheekily-titled Commission on Government Efficiency, or COGE – a nod to the Trump administration’s DOGE, which cut services – is “tasked with making city government work better for New Yorkers,” the mayor announced Thursday.
Members of the commission, led by Patrick Gaspard, who served as an advisor on Mamdani’s campaign, will hold hearings across the city to come up with proposals that would appear later on an election ballot, the mayor said.
“New Yorkers deserve a government that works as hard as they do – and a government as careful with their money as they are,” Mamdani said in a statement.
The initial kick-off of the commission will be on June 4 at 5 p.m.; the location has yet to be announced. The first public hearing will be June 9 at 5 p.m., with nine other meetings set to follow.
Charter revision commissions have resulted in changes including allowing ranked-choice voting in city elections and the creation of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
Last year, there were dueling charter revision commissions called by former Mayor Adams and the City Council. The ballot questions from Adams’s commission usurped the Council’s questions and were focused on land-use changes.
Adams announced another charter revision commission on Dec. 31, 2025, in the final hours of his term – a move that was seen as an attempt to undermine Mamdani. State Sen. John Liu, a Democrat from Queens, introduced a bill to prohibit last-minute charter revisions. That bill was included in the recently passed state budget.
Despite all of that, the former Adams staffers on the commission vowed to soldier on with their plan, releasing a report earlier this week.
That commission still held its first public hearing in The Bronx Wednesday evening, soon after the current mayor announced his own and dissolved theirs. After testimony from just five people, they put forward a ballot question to create open primaries, POLITICO reported. The mayor’s previous charter revision commission nixed the open primary question last year.
Mastro, who is the Adams’ commission’s pro bono counsel, was still committed to their proposal.
“This commission is going to continue to do its work, and now it’s put open primaries and nonpartisan elections on the ballot,” he told POLITICO. “There’s been no alteration of its status, and whatever attempts to alter its status would certainly raise legal issues that would need to be explored.”
Mastro did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
Our nonprofit newsroom relies on donations from readers to sustain our local reporting and keep it free for all New Yorkers. Donate to THE CITY today.
The post Mamdani Kills Adams-Era Charter Commission and Starts His Own COGE, Commission on Government Efficiency appeared first on The City Reporter.
