
Council Member Julie Menin represents Council District 5 in Manhattan which includes East Harlem, Roosevelt Island, the Upper East Side, and Sutton Place. An attorney and former small business owner, she currently serves as Chair of the Council’s Small Business Committee. In her time in the Council she has passed 7 bills in her first year including advancing universal childcare in New York City, easing burdens on small businesses including a one shop stop web portal for all city licenses, and requiring the Department of Health to provide reproductive health services and research reproductive health disparities across the City.
Julie has over two decades of experience in the public and private sectors as an attorney and a civic leader. Most recently, she served as the City’s Census Director achieving a historic result where NYC finished number one of all major cities. She has served as Commissioner of Media and Entertainment and Commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs where she spearheaded groundbreaking initiatives including the implementation of New York City’s Paid Sick Leave Law and the founding of a universal citywide initiative to seed every kindergartener with a college savings account. She previously served as a Columbia adjunct professor teaching on city and state government, preemption and home rule. She graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University and received her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law. She lives in Yorkville with her husband and children.
Council District Five includes the Manhattan neighborhoods of the Upper East Side, East Harlem, Yorkville, Midtown East, Carnegie Hill, Sutton Place, Roosevelt Island, and Lenox Hill.