Menin is taking on Trump on Census, and more
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
Julie Menin’s star has kept rising
since her days leading Lower Manhattan’s
Community Board 1 as its chairperson
in the aftermath of the devastating
9/11 attack.
Now Menin’s civic career is poised
to reach yet another highpoint as she
shoulders critical new responsibilities
— ones that will see her confronting
the policies of the Trump administration
head on.
Namely, Menin was recently appointed
both Census director of New
York City and executive assistant corporation
counsel for strategic advocacy.
In a wide-ranging interview at her
offi ce in the Ed Sullivan Building,
Menin explained her new roles, and
their importance at this key moment
in time.
She’ll be moving to another offi ce
soon, but for now is still in the Theater
District since she was until just recently
commissioner of the Mayor’s Offi
ce of Media and Entertainment.
As Census director, or “Census
Czar,” as she’s been dubbed, her new
job will be to ensure that every city resident
is counted. The population tally
affects not only how many congressional
representatives the city — and,
thereby, the state — is allotted, but also
how much funding New York gets for
essential services and programs.
Right now, though, a legal battle is
being waged on whether the Census
can have a citizenship question. Menin
said the intent of the question — which
last appeared on Census forms more
than half a century ago — is clear: to
create fear, plus withhold critical funding
from blue states, and shift it to red
ones.
“We stand to lose two seats statewide
in an undercount,” she stressed, adding,
“It’s really a push by the Trump administration
to change the makeup of
the Electoral College. I honestly believe
the stakes could not be higher around
this Census.”
The question was hastily added by
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who
claimed the Justice Department requested
it to help enforce voting-rights
laws.
“It’s an attempt to repress the response
in communities of color and
immigrants across the city,” Menin
charged. “The city is 38 percent immigrant.
We’re a city of immigrants.
When you ask someone, ‘Are you a U.S.
citizen?’ We know what this is about.”
Accurate Census data is used to formulate
federal funding allocations for
everything from programs like SNAP
and WIC — for supplemental nutrition
for low-income families — to the amount
of vaccine for disease outbreaks New
York City gets, to money for local senior
centers, emergency preparedness, even
coastal-resiliency projects.
“There’s a pie, which is $700 billion
of federal funding, and everyone
is fi ghting for their share of it,” Menin
explained. “So by asking a citizenship
question, it fundamentally hurts blue
progressive cities like New York City.”
Plaintiffs challenging the citizenship
question include Menin’s New York
City Law Department (also known as
the Corporation Counsel) and the New
York State attorney general, as well as
other states and municipalities.
Because the case must be settled by
June to meet a Census deadline, the
Trump administration has asked to bypass
the Appellate Division and appeal
directly to the Supreme Court.
A 277-page ruling on the case last
month by U.S. District Court Judge
Jesse Furman “lays a clear road map
for the Supreme Court to strike it
down,” Menin said of the citizenship
query.
“Judge Furman’s ruling could not
have been stronger,” she said, noting
the judge slammed the Trump administration’s
last-minute move to add the
citizenship question as “arbitrary and
capricious.”
If the citizenship question remains
on the Census form, however, Menin’s
offi ce will lead an intensive citywide effort
to reassure immigrants they can
fi ll out the document without fear of
retribution.
“We’re going to organize the largest
outreach on the Census in New York
City history,” she vowed. “TV, radio,
print media, social media…then doorknocking,
phone-banking. We will be
setting up offi ces all across the city.”
The city would partner with community
groups and faith-based leaders,
labor and civic groups and community
boards to get the message out, Menin
said.
A key part of that message, she
noted, would be that Title 13 bans the
U.S. Census Bureau from sharing Census
data — specifi cally, people’s personal
information, such as Social Security
numbers or addresses — with other
agencies. Census Bureau employees are
sworn for life to protect confi dentiality.
Anyone who violates that law can face
a federal prison sentence of up to fi ve
years, a $250,000 fi ne, or both.
In addition, for the fi rst time ever,
people will now be able to fi ll out their
Census forms online. Under this process,
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, F 30 EBRUARY 15-21, 2019 BTR
in March 2020, people will fi rst get
a mailing containing a computer code
they can use to complete the Census online.
As people fi ll out the digital forms,
it will provide “real-time data,” Menin
noted.
“We can see which communities
aren’t fi lling it out, and can target
them,” she said.
Manhattan’s Washington Heights
and Inwood, both with a large Hispanic
immigrant community, have boasted
among the highest Census response
rates in the city.
“Why?” Menin said. “Because, for
years, they have organized people to respond.”
For the last Census, in 2010, Washington
Heights had a 78.5 percent “mail
return” response rate while Inwood
had a 77 percent response.
Meanwhile, Battery Park City’s last
Census response rate was only 61.6 percent,
while, similarly, in Soho/Tribeca/
Civic Center/Little Italy it was 61.4 percent,
and in the East Village, 62.6 percent.
The West Village’s Census response
rate in 2010 was a bit better, at 66.8 percent,
and it was 67.2 percent in Hudson
Yards/Chelsea/Flatiron/Union
Square, while the Lower East Side had
a 70.7 return rate.
The always engaged Upper West Side
had a strong 76.3 percent return rate.
“It is about community organizing
at its grassroots,” Menin stressed of the
higher Uptown numbers. “The Downtown
communities’ response rate has
not been that great.”
In fact, the citywide response rate
for the 2010 Census was 59 percent,
while the national rate was 71 percent.
The second new hat Menin is wearing
— executive assistant corporation
counsel for strategic advocacy — will
similarly see her going head to head
with Trump and Co. Notably, Trump
has weakened critical consumer protections,
which must be restored, so
that’s defi nitely going to be one battle,
she said. In general, she’ll be working
to respond to any Trump actions that
could hurt the city.
Menin is enjoying using her legal
skills once again in her new role with
the Corporation Counsel.
Originally from the Washington,
D.C., area, she came to New York to attend
Columbia. She then got her law degree
from Northwestern before returning
to the city.
“I love practicing law,” she said. “It’s
wonderful getting back to that.”
Of course, she’s best known locally
for her two decades of community activism
and civic engagement.
“My heart is always with the community,”
she said.
She said she’ll always treasure the
seven years she chaired C.B. 1, from
2005 to ’12, helping lead Lower Manhattan’s
rebirth after the World Trade Center
attack.
She added that she remains proud,
among other things, that C.B. 1 was “out
in front” in supporting the “Ground
Zero Mosque.”
Ultimately, the ambitious plan ran
into funding problems and a much
smaller spiritual center was built.
Under Menin, Board 1 also supported
the right of Occupy Wall Street
to camp out in Zuccotti Park.
Flashing-forward, toward the end of
her recent tenure heading MoME, the
offi ce of the “nightlife mayor” was created
within the agency. Responding to
skepticism from Downtown residents,
Menin created a community advisory
board to provide input.
MoME also oversees permitting of
on-location fi lm shoots, another quality
of-life nuissance for many residents.
Menin responded to complaints by creating
a “Hiatus List” to give relief to areas
beset by too much fi lming.
“There are now over 800 blocks on
this Hiatus List,” she said. “It’s a sixmonth
moratorium.”
Before that, as commissioner of
the Department of Consumer Affairs,
Menin worked to decrease fi nes on
small merchants, among other things.
“When small businesses are being
hurt,” she said, “cutting their fi nes by
one-third — that really makes an enormous
difference.”
In the past, word was always that
Menin was interested in running for
City Council, but would not try to unseat
an incumbent. She eventually ran
for Manhattan borough president, but
no one could beat Gale Brewer, the longtime
Upper West Side progressive icon.
Asked if she plans to seek offi ce
again, Menin answered, “I’m totally focused
on the Law Department and doing
this work on the Census — we have
18 months.”
However, on Sunday, the New York
Post, albeit quoting an anonymous
source, reported it’s “an open secret”
Menin wants to run for Manhattan district
attorney in 2021.
Menin also currently teaches a class
at her alma mater Columbia, in its
School of International and Public Affairs
(SIPA), called “When Cities Take
the Lead.” Clearly timely, the course
focuses on how cities “get involved”
when the federal government is deregulating.
A few years ago, the former Tribeca
leader and her family moved to the Upper
East Side after Menin’s mother became
ill and needed hospital care. She
and her husband have four children,
their youngest an 8-month-old.
Menin’s grandmother and her
mother, then just an infant, hid in a cellar
in Budapest and survived the Holocaust.
Her grandfather and other relatives
didn’t make it.
Menin said her own family’s experience
inspires her to fi ght for immigrants’
rights, and is why the Census
struggle is “personal” for her.
The horrors her family suffered also
makes her “not sweat the small stuff”
in life.
“It informs my life every single
day,” she said. “It puts things in perspective.”
Julie Menin Photo b Tequila Minsky