User:Veritas411/sandbox

Julie Menin is the former Chairperson of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan, small business owner and regulatory attorney and a well-known advocate for helping Manhattan small businesses recover after the 9/11 attacks. Menin was elected to CB1 in a 2005 special election and was unanimously re-elected to three successive terms in 2006, 2008 and 2010. As chair of CB1, Menin worked on numerous land use and zoning issues, led a successful campaign to build New York City’s first "green" school and other initiatives to revitalize Lower Manhattan. Menin has been recognized for her “solution-based” approach to controversial issues in the wake of 9/11 and as chair of CB1. She is a candidate for Manhattan Borough President.

2013 election
Menin is running in the Democratic primary for Manhattan Borough President in September 2013. She announced her candidacy in December 2012, with a list of more than 200 community endorsements, including activists, district leaders, state committee members, community board chairs and prominent New Yorkers. Since launching her campaign, Menin has also picked up endorsements from Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, State Assembly Member Gabriela Rosa, City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Former Public Advocates Betsy Gotbaum and Mark Green, Former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. Menin's entire list of supporters is posted on juliemenin.com.

In July 2012 she was the first candidate for the office “to raise all the money she is legally entitled to spend in the 2013 primary.” The fundraising was done in record time, out raising those who previously held the office including Scott Stringer and Virginia Fields.

Controversy
In January 2013, the New York Post published an article accusing Menin of party-switching for her own political benefit, noting that Menin had switched parties three times in the span of 17 months between 2001 and 2003. A Democrat in 2001, she switched to the Independence Party in February 2002, then to the Republican Party in March, before switching back to the Democratic Party a year later in March 2003. The Post also noted that shortly after switching to the Republican Party in 2002, Menin donated $11,000 to the re-election campaign of then-incumbent governor George Pataki, before being appointed to the powerful city redistricting commission by Mayor Michael Bloomberg who was also a Republican at the time.

Later in February, City & State uncovered a video of Menin interviewing former superintendent of New York State Banking Department Diana Taylor, a Republican, on her talk show Give and Take where she suggests the federal government was going too far by bailing out car companies during the auto crisis. "Isn't it a bottomless pit... with this money?" She protested, before adding that "the government keeps stepping in and giving these automakers more money" and suggesting that they could instead be allowed to go into a "structured bankruptcy." This was a position echoed by Republican nominee Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign The video was noted as likely damaging her chances at attaining the endorsement of the local United Auto Workers union.

Early career and personal life
Menin is a magna cum laude graduate of Columbia College, Columbia University where she received her BA in political science, and received her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law. She has three young sons and resides in Lower Manhattan with her husband Bruce, a wealthy real estate developer. Menin's TriBeCa loft-style apartment was profiled in the New York Post in 2008 and is estimated to be worth around $10.5 million.

Menin has worked as a senior regulatory attorney at Colgate-Palmolive and a regulatory attorney at Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington D.C.

In the fall of 2009, Menin launched her own talk show, Give and Take, which aired on NBC's 24-hour cable network in major markets around the country.

She used to own and operate Vine, a restaurant and catering business with over 75 employees that she created in Lower Manhattan. Her husband, Bruce Menin, sold the building which formerly housed Vine for $246 million in 2005.

Advocacy and community work
Menin became active in New York City politics when she founded and became president of Wall Street Rising, a non-profit organization created in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks to return "vibrancy and vitality" in Lower Manhattan. It is now the fastest growing neighborhood in New York City with tourism up 40% since 2008, and a growing commercial makeup as well.

In 2002, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed Menin as a Redistricting Commissioner to help in redrawing the new boundaries of the New York City Council.

In 2003, she was appointed to serve on the jury for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition.

She currently serves on several government and civic boards including the The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, The Downtown Alliance, New York Downtown Hospital, The Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Foundation, The Municipal Art Society, and The Women's Campaign Forum. She is a former board member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Citizens Union, and Governors Island.

In November 2007, Menin announced the Community Board's decision to build the first "green" school in New York City. CB 1 successfully advocated for a total of 3 new schools in Lower Manhattan during Menin's time as Chairperson.

On January 16, 2010, She wrote an op-ed for the New York Times arguing that the trial of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed should be moved out of Lower Manhattan. She led the charge to move the trial out of New York City, resulting in the Obama Administration backing out of New York City

On May 25, 2010, Menin presided over the Community Board's historic 29-1 vote in favor of a proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque, preserving the fundamental principle of freedom of religion and used a solution driven approach to urge the interfaith center (where all different religions can worship) be part of the plans.

On August 30, 2010, she wrote an op-ed for the New York Daily News suggesting that an interfaith, nondenominational center be built on two floors of the project. This would be modeled after the Pentagon Interfaith Chapel in order to bridge the divide.

She has been a frequent critic of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (on whose board she sits) and exposed that the agency was sitting on over $200 million. She battled Con Edison in 2010, who tried to lay claim to the $200 million of LMDC funding when Con Ed threatened to raise all New Yorkers rates by $50 if she did not back down. Menin then wrote the Public Service Commission demanding that they investigate Con Ed for illegally threatening to raise rates. She prevailed and the $200 million was allocated to Lower Manhattan as she had advocated.

In September 2011, Menin worked to negotiate what The New York Times dubbed "The Great Sukkah Controversy" where she worked to find an alternate private lot, instead of the public Duane Park for a sukkah to be built. The new space Menin searched and found to host the sukkah ensured that the separation of church and state was maintained. The Downtown Express praised this “as a solution [that] was well thought-out.”

On October 26 2011, Menin led Community Board 1 to a 33-3 vote in favor of Occupy Wall Street's First Amendment right to protest, and opposed the use of force by the city of New York, and at the same time urged the city to address some of the quality of life issues for restaurants and small businesses adjacent to the site, saying "the two were not mutually exclusive." This approach was praised in a New York Times editorial as a "good approach."

Awards

 * Named as a "Rising Star 40 Under 40" by City Hall newspaper-2008
 * Named one of the "Top 100 New Yorkers." by the New York Resident
 * The Women's Campaign Forum's "Rising Star" Award
 * The National Association of Women Business Owners Community Service Award
 * The ACE Civic award
 * The Women's Club of NY "City Spirit Award"
 * Manhattan Youth's Community Service award
 * The 2010 NY League of Conservation Voters award
 * The 2011 Citizen Union’s 2011 Civic Leadership award