Metro

De Blasio appoints deputy mayor

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio named Anthony Shorris a veteran New York-based public official as his deputy mayor for operations.

The appointment, announced on Wednesday, was de Blasio’s first staffing choice since winning a landslide election last month.

Shorris, 56, has worked in education, healthcare and transportation. He is currently the senior vice president, vice dean and chief of staff of NYU Langone Medical Center.

Shorris’ service for the city includes four years as deputy budget director and two years as finance commissioner under Mayor Koch.

He was a senior policy adviser to Eliot Spitzer’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006 and was named by Spitzer as executive director of the Port Authority in 2007. He resigned in 2008 after Spitzer was succeeded by David Paterson.

Before that he was a deputy chancellor in the Board of Education during the Giuliani administration and served under chancellors Harold Levy and Joel Klein. Shorris, who is married and has a son, Michael, holds degrees from Harvard and Princeton and has taught economics at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

De Blasio is expected to announce his pick for police commissioner later this week and say whether his famiy will move into Gracie Mansion or keep living in their Park Slope row house.

Bill de Blasio’s first instruction to deputy Tony Shorris was to step up – literally – onto a stepstool.