Newly-elected City Council Speaker Julie Menin rolled out new leadership roles for the city’s legislative body, elevating its newest members to chair more than half of the committees.
Councilmember Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan) is majority leader, while Councilmember Nantasha Williams (D-Queens) is deputy speaker, Menin announced.
Kamilah Hanks, a Democrat who represents parts of Staten Island, was selected as majority whip.
Menin, a Democrat representing much of Manhattan’s east side, declared victory in the race to lead the council before Thanksgiving. On Thursday, she also announced three new committees, focused on combating hate, workforce development and disability, and also added a new subcommittee on early childhood education.
“I’m so confident in this leadership team,” Menin said at a press conference.
The chairs of the council’s 40 committees and subcommittees lead hearings on specific issues and help dictate legislative priorities. The roles are often doled out in part due to support for the speaker, and through experience and interest.
More than half of the committee chairs are new council members, which Menin said was an “opportunity to have fresh, bold, new leadership as we face this next iteration.”
The speaker also appointed Councilmember Susan Zhuang — who last year bit a police officer in the arm during a protest against a homeless shelter — to lead the aging committee, giving the second-term member her first leadership role. The case against Zhuang was later dropped.
The Brooklyn Democrat represents a large population of older New Yorkers, Menin said.
“We have real needs in senior centers for the aging population that have to be met, and I know she is deeply committed to that population,” she said.
Menin also said Councilmember Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) had been downgraded to membership in just two committees due to an ethics investigation into Islamophobic social media posts, including one that the speaker encouraged her to delete.
“We are not going to tolerate that kind of conduct and that kind of divisiveness,” she said.
Paladino told NY1 that she only requested to be on two committees.
