Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
REMARKS
Speaker Menin shares her vision for a unified and compassionate New York City
1:39:25
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4 min
Speaker Menin delivered a personal address on the importance of bridging divides and maintaining the spirit of compassion that defines New York City during its most difficult moments.
- Highlighted the essential role of immigrants in shaping the city's history, culture, and economic success
- Discussed the need to balance criminal justice reform with public safety and protect the right to worship without fear
- Shared personal anecdotes about her children to illustrate the importance of kindness and mutual respect in civic life
- Committed to being a speaker for all 51 members of the council to create a stronger and more affordable city
Julie Menin
1:39:25
But as your speaker, I wanna anchor our vision of leadership in the story of our city.
1:39:31
A vision is hopeful of the immigrants who come here and as persistent as the spirit that drove them here.
1:39:39
The waves of immigrants that arrived in our shores created waves of change that forever altered the fabric of history.
1:39:47
They brought new perspectives and ideas.
1:39:49
They brought new solutions to old problems and new people to solve them, and they still do.
1:39:56
As the first Jewish speaker, I want my vision of leadership to be as focused on dissolving division as it is on uniting all coalitions.
1:40:05
But most of all, I wanna be a speaker for every single member of this city council because I know that the fight to create a safer, stronger, more affordable New York is not one alone.
1:40:21
And we need to work together to make the greatest city in New York even greatest city in the world even greater.
1:40:28
As a body of 51 individuals, the legislation that is most life changing and forward thinking comes from the collection of policies to which all of us contribute.
1:40:39
Our city is flourished because our foundation wasn't built on simplistic paradigms, and because of our ability to hold two truths that may seem mutually exclusive, but in fact are mutually reinforcing.
1:40:54
For example, our city needs meaningful criminal justice reform and at the same time, we must have the requisite resources for robust public safety measures.
1:41:04
Our city needs to attract new businesses and at the same time, we must have the strongest worker protections in the country.
1:41:12
And our city needs to protect the first amendment right to peacefully protest, which is sacrosanct, but at the same time, we must never jeopardize a New Yorker's right to worship because we cannot let what happened outside Park East Synagogue ever happen again at any house of worship.
1:41:37
To me, this especially hits home.
1:41:39
Our faith is about our family.
1:41:42
Now I know I said earlier that being elected speaker is the greatest professional honor of my life, but I'll happily admit that being a mom is the greatest joy and pleasure in my life.
1:41:54
As a mother of four, my children give me so much love, so much support, so much pride, but they also give me a lot of ideas.
1:42:03
And as I was speaking to them about what I should say today, they offered, a few ideas.
1:42:08
So one of the ideas my seven year old daughter proposed was that we should pass a law that social media should only be used to show nice things like baking cakes or cute stuffed animals.
1:42:22
It's hard to disagree with her on that one, but then she said something else.
1:42:27
She said that we should pass a law that when you cross the street, we must all smile at each other.
1:42:36
And that made me smile, but in the next instant, it sent me back more than twenty years.
1:42:41
I thought of the days right after 09:11 and how we all had a little more love, a little more compassion, and a little more patience for one another.
1:42:51
Or how during COVID, we all checked in on one another.
1:42:54
We looked out for one another.
1:42:56
How in the worst of times, we still had the capacity to give our best and we still do.
1:43:03
It should not take childhood exuberance or a tragedy or even the memory of one to forge compassion within us.
1:43:12
It shouldn't take retelling the story of New York to remind ourselves that immigrants in every decade built and rebuilt this city.
1:43:21
But when we do and when we remember who planted the seeds that bore the fruits of our success, when we recall that the cohesion of our community is rooted in the tolerance of our differences, not the echo chamber of our similarities, we can celebrate New York as a city that leaves no one behind.
1:43:41
A city that was founded as much on courage as on kindness.
1:43:46
A city that raised me and my family and millions of others, and we will be a council that works for all of them.
1:43:53
Thank you.