Julie Menin is poised to turn into the following speaker of the New York Metropolis Council on Jan. 7, probably the most distinguished place thus far in a profession rooted in public service — and one the place she guarantees to hunt frequent floor with incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani to get issues carried out.
Menin secured a supermajority of assist from returning and incoming council members throughout the ideological spectrum following a marketing campaign that emphasised her lengthy document in metropolis authorities and a promise of being a proactive chief.
A reasonable Democrat representing Manhattan’s Higher East Aspect, Menin is predicted to take the gavel from the outgoing speaker, term-limited Adrienne Adams. She’s going to achieve this only a week after the progressive Mamdani takes workplace as the town’s 111th mayor.
So how will the brand new mayor and speaker, typically solid as ideological opposites, work collectively?
Through the race for speaker, some progressive members had tried to border Menin as a possible impediment to Mamdani’s agenda. However Menin mentioned the connection is already productive and grounded in shared priorities.
“I’ve already met with the mayor-elect, and we are very aligned on affordability,” she mentioned in an interview with New York News. “I think we can work extremely well together.”
Manhattan Council Member Julie Menin introduced on Nov. 26 she had secured sufficient assist to turn into the Council’s subsequent speaker.Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit
In an indication that Menin is dedicated to her vow of collaboration with the brand new mayor, former mayor Invoice de Blasio, broadly seen as a key adviser and mentor to Mamdani, publicly signaled assist for Menin’s coming speakership final week after assembly together with her to debate how her management may also help to advance the mayor-elect’s affordability agenda.
“I know firsthand how effective a public servant she is,” de Blasio posted on Dec. 5. “She will be a great partner in the fight for universal childcare, free buses, and a city that puts working people first.”
De Blasio, admired by Mamdani for what he seen as a profitable mayoralty, appears to be enjoying a really distinguished, if oblique, function within the transition part.
Many senior officers from his administration maintain prime roles on Mamdani’s transition group. Incoming First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan is a vet of de Blasio’s Metropolis Corridor, the place he served as finances director and first deputy mayor. Menin herself served in a number of roles beneath de Blasio.
Julie Menin’s profession constructed on administration and disaster administration
Menin joined the Council solely in 2022 after many years of presidency expertise and has led three main metropolis entities: the Division of Shopper Affairs, the Mayor’s Workplace of Media and Leisure and the town’s 2020 Census operation.
“I’ve run three city agencies during tumultuous times,” she mentioned in a latest interview with this paper. “I’ve always been incredibly solution-driven, trying to reach consensus and a solution.”
At Shopper Affairs, she launched reforms to cut back pointless fines on small companies, expanded enforcement in opposition to fraud, applied the town’s paid sick-leave legislation and oversaw an Earned Revenue Tax Credit score initiative that returned tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} to New Yorkers.
As media commissioner, she labored to broaden movie and tv manufacturing, negotiated the return of the Grammy Awards ceremony in 2018, and created coaching pipelines to extend ladies’s participation in TV, movie, theater, and music.
She later led the town’s 2020 Census effort, opposing the Trump administration’s proposed citizenship query and overseeing outreach that resulted within the highest self-response fee of any main U.S. metropolis. On Thursday, the Council handed Menin’s laws to ascertain a everlasting Workplace of the Census, which, if signed into legislation, would require the Mayor to create an Workplace of the Census and appoint a director not less than two and a half years earlier than every federal census.
The invoice comes as New York is projected to lose not less than two congressional seats within the upcoming census, a shift that Menin warned may value the town billions in federal funding. Establishing a completely operational Census Workplace by 2028, she says, would strengthen New York’s place and assist be sure that each resident is counted and represented.
“Establishing a permanent city Office of the Census ensures New York City will receive its fair share of resources and representation and that every New Yorker will be counted,” mentioned Menin.
First Jewish Speaker and Muslim Mayor
Menin’s public life was formed within the aftermath of the Sept. 11 assaults, when she chaired Manhattan Neighborhood Board 1 and helped steer Decrease Manhattan’s restoration. She based Wall Avenue Rising to assist displaced residents and small companies and later served on boards overseeing redevelopment of the World Commerce Heart website. She additionally pushed for the creation of the World Commerce Heart Well being Registry and helped consolidate oversight of Floor Zero development.
Some of the charged points to return earlier than the board throughout her tenure was the proposal for an Islamic group middle and mosque close to the World Commerce Heart website, later referred to as Park51. The plan ignited a nationwide firestorm, with critics objecting to constructing an Islamic establishment so near Floor Zero.
Menin guided the board via the talk, resulting in a 29-1 vote in assist of the challenge. She additionally urged planners to include an interfaith element, arguing the middle ought to promote deeper understanding amongst religion communities. She later acquired dying threats for her function.
Menin mentioned her expertise defending Park51 after 9/11 stays central to her perception in coalition-building.
“I stood up for that project because it was about freedom of religion,” she mentioned. “I wrote the resolution and got it through my community board. Even after receiving death threats, I stood by it. I’ve always believed we have much more in common than apart.”
That message has surfaced typically in latest months. She described assembly a Muslim scholar in her district who, after Oct. 7, co-founded a Muslim-Jewish membership together with her Jewish finest pal.
“That’s what we need in the city — people coming together even when they don’t agree on everything,” Menin mentioned.
The subject additionally got here up in her conversations with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. “When we met in August, we talked about the Islamic cultural center because he knew I had supported it,” she mentioned. “I look forward to continuing that conversation. I really think there’s an opportunity here to bring the city together.”
Menin declined to endorse within the mayoral race, which she mentioned was intentional.
“I knew I would need to work with whoever had won,” she mentioned. “Affordability is front and center, and that’s where I see the most alignment with the new administration.”
Menin will now turn into the town’s first Jewish Council speaker on the similar second New York inaugurates its first Muslim mayor, a pairing she views as each historic and mandatory in a interval of rising pressure.
“I think it’s incredibly exciting to have the first Muslim mayor and the first Jewish speaker, both of which are historic,” she mentioned. “I’m the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. To be in this role at this pivotal time is deeply important to me.”
Public service rooted in household
Menin typically cites her household’s story as the inspiration of her public service.
Her mom and grandmother survived the Holocaust in Hungary earlier than fleeing Soviet rule, finally resettling in Australia and later in Yorkville, the neighborhood Menin now represents.
“They rebuilt their lives here,” she mentioned. “The Hungarian Jewish community welcomed them with open arms. It is the deepest honor to represent the community that gave my family a better life.”
That historical past has knowledgeable her work in workplace. Final 12 months, she helped set up a citywide partnership with the Museum of Jewish Heritage to make sure each eighth-grade public college scholar visits the Holocaust exhibition.
“Studies show more than a third of young people believe the Holocaust is a myth or exaggerated,” she mentioned. “We need to reach students before their hearts are hardened.”
Plans for speakership
She mentioned the device could be used in opposition to firms that flagrantly violate metropolis legal guidelines, drawing on her expertise as commissioner of Shopper Affairs, when her workplace investigated debt collectors and different companies engaged in predatory practices.
“I believe that we should do what no Council has ever done,” Menin mentioned, describing subpoenas as a solution to maintain firms accountable. She emphasised that council oversight is designed to strengthen authorities, noting that, as a former commissioner, she discovered hearings to be worthwhile for uncovering points and enhancing metropolis companies.
Since becoming a member of the Council, Menin has handed greater than a dozen payments, together with the Healthcare Accountability Act, which requires hospitals to publish process costs. She has additionally superior laws on baby care entry, small enterprise allowing, reproductive well being, and home violence authorized companies. She at the moment chairs the Committee on Shopper and Employee Safety and co-chairs the Girls’s Caucus.
Her speakership, she mentioned, will deal with stronger oversight and a proactive legislative agenda, notably on housing and affordability.
“I think the Council has been far too reactive in recent years,” she mentioned. “We haven’t really put out our own proactive vision for how we’re going to build more affordable housing.”
Menin plans to have the Council conduct a citywide stock of publicly owned land and underused buildings to establish potential housing websites. She additionally cited staffing vacancies in metropolis companies as a key impediment to service supply.
“Some agencies have up to one-third vacancies. That means the slowing down of city services,” she mentioned. “When you have that kind of attrition, it’s incredibly problematic.”
On well being care, Menin mentioned her price-transparency push is a step towards reducing prices in a system beneath rising fiscal pressure. On childcare, an space the place she and Mamdani seem intently aligned, she mentioned she needs to discover a “baby bond” or comparable early-investment program, citing her earlier work on creating NYC Youngsters RISE, a common college-savings initiative.
Looking for ‘wholesome oversight’
Menin can be making bettering Metropolis Council oversight a precedence, citing frequent situations of company officers failing to seem at hearings.
“Many times, we had so many oversight hearings where no one from the administration would even show up at our hearing, and you’d have five empty chairs,” she mentioned. “That is not wholesome oversight. And so then we can’t really perform our oversight function.”
Simply this previous week, the Council’s Committee on Immigration held a listening to on 4 payments aimed toward strengthening sanctuary metropolis protections, however officers from the Mayor’s Workplace of Immigrant Affairs and metropolis legislation enforcement companies initially declined to testify.
Solely after Council Member Tiffany Cabán personally requested it did MOIA Commissioner Manny Castro seem in his private capability to assist the payments, breaking from the mayor’s public opposition.
Menin mentioned such absences undermine the Council’s function in holding metropolis companies accountable and burdened that she plans to make sure future hearings are productive. As a former commissioner, Menin mentioned she discovered council hearings to be a worthwhile device for bettering metropolis companies, with council members serving because the eyes and ears of their communities.
“Oversight is one of the most valuable tools because it uncovers issues agencies might not otherwise see,” she mentioned. She added that she expects a extra collaborative strategy beneath the brand new administration, permitting the Council to carry out its co-equal legislative and oversight capabilities successfully.
Menin mentioned she expects a unique strategy beneath the incoming administration, emphasizing collaboration and responsiveness. “We’re going to have a collaborative working relationship,” she mentioned. “That’s how authorities ought to perform — companies shifting ahead, the council performing its function, and a wholesome dialogue between each branches.
Menin mentioned a central focus of her speakership will likely be strengthening the Metropolis Council’s oversight function, notably after a sample of company officers failing to attend hearings beneath the earlier administration.
“Many times, we had so many oversight hearings where no one from the administration would even show up at our hearing, and you’d have five empty chairs,” she mentioned. “That is not wholesome oversight. And so then we can’t really perform our oversight function.”
As a former commissioner, Menin mentioned she discovered council hearings to be a worthwhile device for bettering metropolis companies, with council members serving because the eyes and ears of their communities.
“It helps government function better,” she mentioned. “Oversight is one of the most valuable tools because it uncovers issues agencies might not otherwise see.”
Menin mentioned she expects a unique strategy beneath the incoming administration, emphasizing collaboration and responsiveness.
“We’re going to have a collaborative working relationship,” she mentioned. “That’s how government should function — agencies moving forward, the council performing its role, and a healthy dialogue between both branches.”
“No matter where one falls on an ideological spectrum, every New Yorker should want a strong council that is focused on negotiating the budget, having a proactive vision for land use, having strong and fair, and transparent oversight, because that oversight helps the agency.”
