Upper East Side City Council Race: Julie Menin Seeks Open Seat

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Voters in New York City's 5th Council district, which covers much of the Upper East Side, will see two names on their ballots when they vote in the Nov. 2 general election.

One of those names will be Julie Menin, a former city commissioner, community board member and the outgoing director of the city's 2020 Census outreach. Menin triumphed in a hard-fought Democratic primary in June against six other candidates.

She will face Mark Foley, a businessman running on the Republican and and Liberal Party lines. Both candidates are running to replace Ben Kallos, who has represented the district for two terms but is prevented by term limits from running again.

Patch reached out to all candidates in the election to create these profiles. Menin's responses are below.

Age (as of Election Day)

54

Position Sought

City Council District 5

Party Affiliation

Democrat

Neighborhood of residence (i.e., East Village, Astoria, etc.)

Yorkville

Family

I am a third generation resident of the district. My mother and grandmother came here as Holocaust survivors from Hungary, and my mother grew up here and my father still lives here. This is the community I call home where I am raising my children.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

Columbia University, B.A. magna cum laude | Northwestern University School of Law, J.D.

Occupation

I have worked in the public and private sectors in many roles - as an attorney (20+ years), Commissioner of three NYC agencies (see below), Adjunct Professor at Columbia University teaching on city government, small business owner, and founder of not-for-profit Wall Street Rising and private/public partnership NYC Kids Rise.

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, Commissioner of Media and Entertainment, Redistricting Commissioner, NYC Census Director and Executive Assistant Corporation Counsel - NYC Law Department, and 7 year Community Board Chair

Campaign website

https://juliefornyc.com/

Why are you seeking elective office?

New York City is in crisis right now. We need strong, experienced leaders who know city government inside and out and can hit the ground running to drive our recovery, particularly as we will have so many new members on the City Council. I've served as Commissioner starting in the Bloomberg Administration. I have served as Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, Commissioner of Media and Entertainment, NYC Census Director and held a senior role at the NYC Law Department. I want to utilize these two decades of experience in city government, as well as my experience in the private sector and as an attorney and adjunct professor at Columbia, to help our community and our city recover.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

My number one priority is fighting for a full and equitable recovery. New Yorkers are hurting. Small business owners are struggling to get back on track, students have lost precious learning time, and lack of action around public safety threatens to derail our recovery. I am the only candidate with city government expertise as a three time City Commissioner, with a track record of building coalitions to deliver solutions to the city’s problems. This experience and track record is critical given the state of our city and the need to deliver solutions.

To build to a full recovery, I would focus on: public safety; making it easier to do business in this city and addressing the retail vacancy crisis; keeping our schools fully reopened; improving sanitation in the district; affordable housing and addressing the unacceptable backlog of repairs at NYCHA; and utilizing the experience I gained in my prior roles to launch and support initiatives to create and sustain jobs including programs to shop/buy local and other initiatives to revive our local economy.

Public safety is integral to achieving a full recovery. I do not believe we need to choose between prioritizing public safety and meaningful criminal justice reform. Our goal should be to ensure everyone feels comfortable in their homes and communities, and that we have true accountability.

We must keep our schools fully reopened and help our students recover from their time out of school. As the only candidate with the track record of having built three new public schools, and having launched NYC KIDS RISE (a public/private partnership that has created over 13,000 college savings accounts for NYC public school students), I can lead on education issues.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I believe there are several critical differences between myself and my opponent.
First, my opponent backs Curtis Sliwa and the Republican Party platform and opposes any vaccine mandates in restaurants and indoor spaces. As the City’s Census Director and senior member of the NYC Law Department, I was part of the successful lawsuit suing the Trump Administration at the US Supreme Court on the citizenship question.

Second, I am the only candidate in this race with city government experience and expertise. We need to elect leaders who have a deep level of knowledge about the City Council’s work and jurisdiction, as well as the city’s budget and the myriad city agencies.

Third, I am the only candidate with a track record of delivering results for our residents and businesses. As Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, I implemented the Paid Sick Leave and Living Wage laws, increased consumer relief by 70%, and instituted 25 reforms to lower fines on small businesses - which lowered punitive fines on small businesses by one third. As Commissioner of Media and Entertainment, I created thousands of jobs, launched numerous initiatives to increase economic opportunities in particular for women in the creative sectors, negotiated the deal that brought the Grammys back to NYC resulting in a $200 million economic benefit for the city, presided over a $9 billion creative sector for the city, launched the nation's first Freelancers Hub, and built the country's first municipal VR/AR lab. As the city's Census Director, we finished number one in the country of all major cities across the country by achieving a 99% count rate, documenting significant growth in our city’s population since 2010, which will deliver billions to our city for public education, healthcare and affordable housing. And we did this in the middle of a pandemic, and as we battled numerous legal hurdles from Washington and the federal government’s abrupt early termination of our counting window.

Fourth, on one of the key issues affecting our district, education, I am the only candidate with real experience addressing education issues. I have been a passionate advocate for our public schools for decades, leading the charge to build and open three new public schools, including the city's first green school. I also founded NYC KIDS Rise while serving as Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, which is now the nation's largest municipal Child's Savings Account. This public/private partnership has seeded over 13,000 NYC students with a college savings account and has just been expanded citywide. We should expand our Gifted and Talented programs so that more students and communities have access to these programs and bring them to a wider audience throughout the district and city. And we need to continue to work on securing pre-K and 3-K seats for our littlest learners.

Finally, unlike my opponent, who has not attended a single Blood Center community meeting in the past year and a half, I have been a vocal opponent of the Longfellow Blood Center Tower. I am the only candidate in this race who testified in front of the Community Board, the Borough President, the City Planning Commission, and the City Council in opposition to the project. From the start, I have been clear about my concerns about the precedents that this project might set for contextual zoning across District 5 and across the rest of our City.
Our city needs action today. I have laid out detailed plans and a clear vision for how to move our community and city forward, and will energetically lead as well as partner with those putting forth thoughtful programs that will help our community.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

There was a highly concerning lack of coordination between the city and state—specifically the Mayor and former Governor—on how to handle COVID. There was conflicting guidance from the city and state on everything from schools, to small businesses, to closure rules, to even the reopening. Lack of a united front also negatively impacted vaccination efforts, creating an initial inequity in the availability of vaccines from neighborhood to neighborhood. Particularly distressing was the lack of initiative to prioritize getting vaccines to our essential workers, who bore the brunt of the Covid stresses and stayed on the job to take care of the rest of our community. The city's failure to utilize and fund community-based organizations as part of our pandemic and vaccine-related outreach campaigns was tragic, particularly as those are the trusted voices that can overcome vaccine hesitancy. We should have immediately deployed the network of community based organizations that the city used in the census to address these issues.

With respect to small businesses, the Department of Small Business did much less than it could have to help small businesses access the federal PPP grants. I individually helped many businesses access these grants, but the city needed a much more aggressive outreach and assistance plan to aid struggling small businesses. The city also failed to institute a single city portal for all licenses and permits to aid small businesses navigate these and other Covid related issues, something I would have pushed for.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

We must keep our schools fully open. We must invest in our schools, ensuring that every student has access to safe, clean facilities and appropriate classroom sizes and curriculum, with modern day technology and healthy meals. We have to once and for all tackle the inequitable digital divide, where one third of New Yorkers lack access to broadband. Every student should receive arts and music education and no one should be forced to have lunch at 10:15 am, as has been the case in overcrowded schools. As Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, I created NYC KIDS RISE, with its pilot program providing 13,000 low-income kindergarteners with college savings accounts, and am thrilled that this initiative has just been pushed city-wide. I will continue to fight for programs like this.

I will fight for a Green New Deal for CUNY that would both make it free for all in-state residents and provide it with sorely needed resources. As Commissioner of Media and Entertainment, I launched multiple initiatives to modernize our city and make our future more environmentally friendly. I am proud to be endorsed by the New York League of Conservation Voters, and if elected, I will continue to lead on green issues and focus on fixing and expanding our Esplanade and other open spaces, and addressing the climate resiliency of our waterfront communities - including Roosevelt Island.

Similarly, I am the only candidate in this race endorsed by gender equity focused organizations like the National Organization of Women - NYC, Eleanor’s Legacy, and Vote Mama. Throughout my career I have fought for gender equity, from spearheading the seminal Pink Tax study that led to state legislation that banned charging women and girls more for products comparable to products marketed to men and boys, to creating the nation's first municipal Women's Film, Theatre and Music fund to give direct grants to women creatives, creating opportunities for them in an otherwise difficult-to-enter space. On the City Council, I will continue to fight for universal childcare and the elimination of the pay gap to lift up and empower women.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

In my over two decades in public service, and in my work as a lawyer in the private sector and as a small business owner, I have had a stellar track record of getting things done. In my various public service roles, I led the charge to create three new public schools, including the city's first green school, launched the Paid Sick Leave and Living Wage laws, created over a dozen programs aimed at addressing gender inequities, and instituted zoning reforms that created new affordable housing and limited the street level footprint of big box stores who were pushing out neighborhood small businesses. I played a leading role in the rebuilding efforts after 9/11 as the seven year Chair of Community Board 1 and helped direct over $3 billion to create new and revitalized green spaces and waterfronts and other critical needs throughout Manhattan. I launched a first of its kind program to encourage sustainability in film production, helped unionize and support workers in many industries, slashed overly-burdensome fines and regulations, and much more.

As Director of the City's Census efforts, I directly took on Trump, joining a lawsuit challenging his effort to put a citizenship question on the Census. We won that case and along the way built an unprecedented community outreach apparatus that propelled our Census response rates to beat almost every major city across the country, securing billions for healthcare, our schools, and more for the next decade.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

There's no better skill than being a good listener. In every role I have had, nothing has proved more valuable than listening to stakeholders and being able to respond directly to their needs.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

This district is where my mother was raised after fleeing Hungary and surviving the Holocaust, and where my family rebuilt their lives. Today, it is where I am raising my own children. I love this neighborhood, I love this city, and I have dedicated my life to fighting on behalf of New Yorkers. This past year and a half has been hard for all of us, but New York is tough. New York will recover, but to get there we need decisive action from experienced leaders. With a new mayor and 35 open city council seats, it is imperative that we elect people who know how to navigate City Hall and cut through bureaucratic red tape, and can hit the ground running to enact a bold agenda to help all who need help.

I have the broadest and most diverse coalition of supporters because of my two decade track record of getting things done, including helping to implement the city's municipal ID program, mandating life saving EpiPens on all city and state ambulances, growing our film and TV industry to record heights to create thousands of new jobs, winning record settlements from those preying on our residents, reducing unnecessary fines on small businesses, facilitating re-zonings to allow for the construction of affordable housing, and helping make our city better prepared for future storms through revitalization of our waterfronts. I have the experience and track record to deliver. My endorsers include:

Elected Officials:
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Former Governor David Paterson, Former Comptroller Carl McCall, Former Public Advocate Mark Green, Assemblywoman Rebecca Seawright, Assemblyman Dan Quart, Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez, Former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, City Councilman Ben Kallos, City Councilwoman Diana Ayala, City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera.

Labor: The United Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO NYC Central Labor Council, Doctors Council SEIU, the National Organization of Women - NYC, the New York League of Conservation Voters, LIT, Communications Workers of America, District 1, SEIU 32BJ, The Hotel Trades Council, AFSCME District Council 37, New York State Nurses Association, Freelancers Union, Teamsters Local 237, Theatrical Stage Employees Local One, Teamsters Local 831 - Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, #LaborStrong2021 Coalition, American Federation of Musicians - Local 802, Teamsters Local 817, CUNY Professional Staff Congress, New York Metro Area Postal Union, RWDSU, The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, UNITE HERE! Local 100, the 504 Democratic Club, Lexington Democratic Club, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, Upper East Side District Leader Cory Evans, Upper East Side District Leader Jake Dilemani, Upper East Side District Leader Eric Spencer, E. Harlem District Leader Harry Rodriguez, E. Harlem District Leader John Ruiz, E. Harlem District Leader Peggy Morales, E. Harlem District Leader Eddie Gibbs, Midtown District Leader Louise Dankberg.

Community Leaders:
Co-Founder of the Holmes-Isaacs Coalition Saundrea Coleman, NYCHA Advocate Sandra Perez, President of the East River Fifties Alliance Lisa Mercurio, President of the Lexington Democratic Club Matt Walsh, Co-Administrator of UES MOMMAS Tiffany Ma, Vice President of the East 86th St Association Andrew Fine, President of the East 72nd Street Association Valerie Mason, President of Sutton Area Community Charles Coutinho, President of the Lexington Houses Tenant Association Christina Johnson, President of the 333 E 66th St Corporation Dr. Ellyn Berk, Vice President of the Lexington Democratic Club Stephanie Knepper, Treasurer of the Lexington Democratic Club Mark McKew, Former Chair of Community Board 6 Molly Hollister, Eastern Executive of the Directors Guild of America Neil Dudich, East River Fifties Alliance Leadership Committee Member Melissa Mittman, CD 5 UFT Leader Farrah Alexander, Roosevelt Island Community Advocate Patricia Ricketts, CD 5 UFT Leader Gloria Winograd, Former President of the East River Democratic Club Alec Hartman, Former District Leader Lisa K. Pass, Former President of the Lenox Hill Democratic Club and Former District Leader Karl Seidenwurm, Board Member of the E 86th St Association Orah Massarsky, Former District Leader and Former President of the Lenox Hill Democrats John Halebian, East River Fifties Alliance Leadership Committeemember Jennifer Crandall, Community Leader Letty Simon, 315 E 68th St Board Member Martin A. Bell, Esq, Community Leader May Malik, Community Activist Gayle Baron, Adjunct Professor at NYU Langone Dr. Elizabeth Hale, Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Medicine Dr. Julie Karen, Roosevelt Island Advocate Katina Navab, Community Leader Jan Llanes, Community Leader Daniel Kraus, Arts Advocate Rachel Kraus, Community Leader Deepti Mittal, Community Activist Karen Lawson, Arts & Cultural Leader Carl Goodman, Roosevelt Island Arts Advocate Aphrodite Navab, Community and Education Leader Elizabeth Rose, Owner of Trinity Pub Gene Lennon, Healthcare Advocate Dr. Ali Navab, Not-For-Profit Leader Cathy Blaney, Not-For-Profit Leader John McCormick, Sutton Neighborhood Leader EveAnn Cassis, Parks Advocate Claire Mann, and many more.

I hope to earn your vote on November 2nd . Go to juliefornyc.com to learn more or get involved.