{"id":205387,"date":"2026-04-21T23:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205387\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T23:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:10:07","slug":"farah-louis-kicked-off-secretive-nyc-council-budget-negotiating-team-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205387\/","title":{"rendered":"Farah Louis kicked off secretive NYC Council Budget Negotiating Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

When New York City Council Member Farah Louis was raided by the feds<\/a> as part of a corruption probe last month, City Council Speaker Julie Menin declined to take steps to remove her from her powerful perch as chair of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, citing the ongoing nature of the federal investigation. Louis has not been accused of wrongdoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the speaker did quietly reprimand Louis, removing her from the council\u2019s Budget Negotiating Team, a City Council source recently shared after City & State published a story<\/a> about how Menin was handling the situation. A representative for Louis did not comment for this story.<\/p>\n

The Budget Negotiating Team, handpicked by the speaker, is most directly involved in conversations with the mayoral administration about the city\u2019s $127 billion budget. It\u2019s a more informal group than the public facing committees and caucuses, but it\u2019s the one everyone wants to be a part of. Known as BNT, they\u2019ve met a handful of times so far this year, contributing to the council\u2019s budget response<\/a> to the Mamdani administration\u2019s preliminary budget proposal. At meetings, the team reviews documents in person that they are not allowed to take out of the room to prevent leaks. Occasionally the group makes decisions by taking a vote. The team also has a role communicating budget priorities to the rest of the council.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt its core, BNT is the Council\u2019s budget clearinghouse,\u201d former Council Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan said in an email. \u201cIt\u2019s where all 51 member priorities get triaged, negotiated, and turned into something workable. Think of it like dumping a pile of Legos on a table and then having to actually build a house out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speaker\u2019s office had repeatedly declined to share the list with City & State, but other council sources were less reticent. City & State pieced together a full list of members on the influential task force. It includes all of Menin\u2019s leadership team except for Elsie Encarnacion, a first-term member the speaker appointed as deputy whip. Council Members Virginia Maloney and Phil Wong are the only first-termers on it. Council Members Crystal Hudson \u2013 Menin\u2019s top rival in the speaker race \u2013 is on BNT, along with fellow Progressive Caucus members Nantasha Williams, Chi Oss\u00e9, Shekar Krishnan and Jennifer Guti\u00e9rrez.\u00a0Council Member David Carr is the only Republican on the team, though Wong, a conservative Democrat, is on the Common Sense Caucus with him.<\/a><\/p>\n

Some notable people who were left off the BNT include Council Members Gale Brewer, the body\u2019s most experienced member; Selvena Brooks-Powers, chair of the important Criminal Justice committee as the city looks to close Rikers Island; and Lincoln Restler and Althea Stevens, who teamed up to organize<\/a> an internal vetting process last year to choose the next speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cBNT is a big deal,\u201d Brannan said. \u201cEveryone wants to be on it because it feels like some elite, exclusive club, but once you get behind the velvet ropes, you realize it\u2019s just more work and lots of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the full list:

\nJulie Menin

\nShaun Abreu

\nLinda Lee

\nNantasha Williams

\nKevin Riley

\nEric Dinowitz

\nYusef Salaam

\nVirginia Maloney

\nSandra Ung

\nShekar Krishnan

\nLynn Schulman

\nPhil Wong

\nJennifer Guti\u00e9rrez

\nCrystal Hudson

\nChi Oss\u00e9

\nChris Banks\u00a0

\nSusan Zhuang\u00a0

\nMercedes Narcisse\u00a0

\nKamillah Hanks\u00a0

\nDavid Carr\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When New York City Council Member Farah Louis was raided by the feds as part of a corruption…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-205387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}