Julie Menin Elected Chairwoman of Community Board 1

By Barry Owens

By a wide majority Community Board 1 elected Julie Menin, the founder and president of Wall Street Rising, as chairwoman in a special election held June 21.

Julie Menin, one of three candidates for chair of Community Board 1, speaks to the board before the vote is taken. Behind her, at right, is acting chairman Richard Kennedy, one of her opponents. Photo: Carl Glassman
Menin won 35 of the 49 votes and will serve out the remaining one-year term of former chairwoman Madelyn Wils. Wils' two-year term was cut short in March when Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields declined to reappoint her.

"We are at a critical crossroads for our neighborhood," Menin said, noting during her campaign speech the mounting construction in the neighborhood, a booming residential population and overcrowding in the schools called for active leadership. "We really need a forceful and staunch chair."

Menin said she would be active in setting the agenda for the board instead of "waiting for things to happen" and would work to make the board's decision process more inclusive by drawing consensus from the "bottom up, not from the top down."
She called for more outreach from the board, including a revamp of its web site. She also said she would reinstitute a quality of life committee to the board to examine noise, neighborhood nuisances and other community concerns.

"We need to put the word 'community' back in community board," said Menin, who has been a CB1 member since 2002.

There were four candidates for board chair; Richard Kennedy, vice chairman; Anthony Notaro, who heads the board's Battery Park City Committee and Marc Ameruso, who was making his third bid for the seat but dropped out of the race just before the balloting began.

Although the election was largely viewed as a race between the two frontrunners, Menin and Kennedy, the number of candidates created a palpable sense political drama. For nearly two decades the race for chair of the 50-member volunteer board has been more low-key affair that often involved little or no challenge to the sitting chair.

"It's exciting," said board member Harold Reed before the meeting. "It feels like a real election."

"This experience has been like a reality TV show," joked Notaro during his speech to the board. "It has been very much like 'Who Wants to be the Next Chair?'"

Notaro, who has been a board members for five years, pointed to the consensus building skills he has honed as chair of the Battery Park City Committee as an example of his leadership style.
Menin accepts applause from fellow board members following the announcement of her victory. The meeting was held in the auditorium of P.S. 234. Photo: Carl Glassman
"It really isn't just about the chair, it's about [input from] everybody," he said.

Kennedy, a long-time member of the board, pointed to his experience. He has chaired the board's World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee and served as board chairman after Wils stepped down.

"We need to get our strengths together," he said. "Community Board 1's voice, vision and input needs to woven into the rebuilding [effort]," he said.

Ameruso withdrew his name from the race, but not before delivering a few parting shots in what was largely a stump speech before the board. A frequent critic of what he perceives as factionalism on the board, he called for more voices to be heard in the decision making process.

"The issues will take care of themselves so long as everyone is allowed to be included in the process," he said.

Menin, 37, lives in the Financial District with her husband Bruce Menin, who heads Crescent Heights, the largest residential and hotel condominium development company in the nation. She is a mother of three (including infant twins) and a former attorney in regulatory law. She founded the Downtown business revitalization group Wall Street Rising after the Sept. 11 attacks. She has said she would step down as president of the organization if she were elected board chair.

"I really think this election was about reform," Menin said during a brief acceptance speech, adding that she hoped to lead the board on issues more pressing than internal debates. "To get bogged down in negativity on issues just regarding process would be a tremendous waste."