UES Pol Julie Menin Charged With Overseeing Former Agency She Led

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The self-styled reformer is now overseeing the agency she used to lead a decade ago.

Amid a shuffle of committee chair appointments last week, Upper East Side Council Member Julie Menin was appointed as the the Chair of the council's Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection.

It's a return to the agency Menin says she reformed a decade ago when she was at the head of the agency.

"As a former attorney that practiced consumer protection law and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, I am honored to be appointed Chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection," said Menin. "I thank Speaker Adams for entrusting me with this chairmanship and I look forward to supporting her vision of providing workers, unions and consumers with the protections New Yorkers deserve.”

From 2014 to 2016, Menin served as commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection — the first of her city appointments — where she said she overhauled what her office called an "odious" burdensome city agency that had a "notorious reputation for issuing excessive fines to businesses to generate revenue for the city."

Menin, who began her career as a lawyer focused on consumer protection law, focused on reducing violations for small businesses when there was no consumer harm

Her reforms include instituting a one-stop-shop web portal for all city licenses, reducing several onerous penalties and violations for small businesses when there was no consumer harm by 40 percent in her first year on the job.

At the same time, consumers benefited too, with consumer restitions rising by 70 percent — from $3.6 to $6.2 million — during that same year.

As commissioner, Menin also oversaw the implementation of the expansion of the Living Wage Law, the Small Business Relief Package, and the Paid Sick Leave Law.

Menin later served as the commissioner for the office of Media and Entertainment and was the 2020 New York City Census director.

Her marquee legislative accomplishment last year, the Healthcare Accountability & Consumer Protection Act, also built on that legacy of consumer protection by creating a new office to help make medical procedure prices transparent at city hospitals by allowing patients to compare costs online.