Exclusive: Mamdani Pick for Top Diversity Official Is a Recidivist Bus Lane Blocker

Mayor-elect Mamdani announced on Monday that he will retain Mayor Adams's Chief Business Diversity Officer — but also revealed a symbolic abrogation of his campaign promise to get cars out of the way of buses.

The official, Michael Garner, is a former MTA official whose car has been caught blocking bus lanes or bus stops six times this year alone, according to public records. And since 2020, Garner's car has racked up 11 violations for blocking a bus lane, as well as 39 tickets for such egregious traffic violations as failing to display a meter receipt or parking at a hydrant as well as one violation for running a red light.

The full list of violations attached to Garner's car is in city data, available to anyone who wants to vet Garner's record. He has paid all his tickets except the most-recent one on Oct. 21, a $250 fine for parking in a bus stop.

Garner joined the Adams administration as the city's first ever top official overseeing contractor diversity programs in 2023 after a 13-year career at the MTA.

The previous year, the Daily News caught him using an expired MTA Police Department placard to park illegally near the transportation authority's headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

"His 2014 Mercedes-Benz E class was easy to identify: It has a vanity license plate bearing his last name, 'Garner,'" the paper reported. "He parked in a spot on Broadway in the Financial District reserved for MTA police cars."

His disregard for the rules of the road persists to this day, however. In addition to six bus lane or bus stop violations in 2025, Garner's car also received three other violations for illegal parking — including one for parking in a designated "safety zone."

One advocate was optimistic that the Mamdani administration will soon address the type of placard abuse and illegal parking repeatedly committed by Garner or someone else using his car.

"As riders know all too well, slow buses are a policy choice that our leaders have made for decades. It's no secret that public officials block bus lanes both with their government and personal vehicles," said Danny Pearlstein of Riders Alliance. "As we've been hearing throughout the recent discussion of placard reform, transforming that reality is one part of delivering on the promise of fast buses."

The Chief Business Diversity office was created by Mayor Adams, who installed Garner at the top. According to Mamdani's transition team, "Garner’s new programs have created more than $20 billion in payments to New York State/City Minority and Women-owned Businesses."

Diversity is also a huge component of the bus system that Zohran Mamdani has vowed to improve. According to Riders Alliance, 70 percent of NYC transit riders are people of color and bus riders’ average income is less than $30,000 per year.

It's not the first time a Mamdani appointment has invited questions. Earlier this month, the mayor-elect's pick for director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, withdrew after reports that she had made anti-Semitic tweets many years ago.

Streetsblog has reached out to the Mamdani transition team and will update this story if we hear back.

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— with Gersh Kuntzman