{"id":91687,"date":"2026-01-06T23:22:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91687\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T23:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:22:26","slug":"incoming-nyc-council-speaker-julie-menin-taps-bronx-democratic-operative-as-top-aide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91687\/","title":{"rendered":"Incoming NYC Council Speaker Julie Menin taps Bronx Democratic operative as top aide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Incoming City Council Speaker Julie Menin is expected to tap Miguelina Camilo, a Bronx Democratic Party<\/a> operative and onetime state Senate candidate, to serve as the chamber\u2019s chief of staff, sources familiar with the matter told the Daily News on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

As Council chief of staff, Camilo would be Menin\u2019s right hand, responsible for lining up support for legislation, liaising with the chamber\u2019s 50 other members and managing the body\u2019s day-to-day operations. A source close to her also said she\u2019d be one of the Council\u2019s first female chiefs of staff.<\/p>\n

Camilo, who has most recently been serving as counsel to State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie<\/a>, didn\u2019t return a request for comment Tuesday afternoon. Menin\u2019s team declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Menin is expected to be formally elected Council speaker during its first meeting of the year set for Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"CityCity Council Member Julie Menin is pictured at City Hall on Friday, June. 23, 2023 in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes\/AP Images for Power to the Patients)<\/p>\n

A former vice president of the Bronx Democratic Party, Camilo is best known in NYC politics<\/a> for launching an ultimately unsuccessful 2022 primary challenge against State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a progressive Democrat and key ally to Mayor Mamdani.<\/p>\n

Rivera eked out a razor-thin victory over Camilo in that race, which was marked by bitterness, with the two candidates accusing each other of being carpetbaggers<\/a> who didn\u2019t actually reside in his Senate district spanning north Bronx neighborhoods like Fordham, Belmont and Riverdale.<\/p>\n

Even though Rivera was the incumbent, the Bronx Democratic Party endorsed Camilo in that contest, a snub that resulted in bad blood between party operatives and progressive Rivera supporters.<\/p>\n

Council insiders suggested Camilo\u2019s political background could unnerve some of the chamber\u2019s left-leaning members, especially as the body prepares to work with Mamdani, a democratic socialist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re rolling their eyes over there,\u201d said one person close to Council progressives.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during the swearing-in ceremony for FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore at the FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn, Tuesday, January 6, 2026. (Shawn Inglima\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Menin, a more moderate Democrat than Mamdani, has vowed to work with the mayor on shared priorities like childcare and driving down costs for consumers. They appeared together at a press conference in Queens earlier this week to tout new executive orders<\/a> being rolled out by the mayor related to\u00a0rooting out\u00a0\u201cjunk fees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Council speakers historically serve as checks on the mayor. For Menin, there are expectations among centrist Democrats that she will serve as an especially aggressive check<\/a> on Mamdani when it comes to the most left-leaning aspects of his agenda.<\/p>\n

Besides Camilo, Menin is expected to hire Bhav Tibrewal, the political director of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council<\/a>, Simone Jones, another former Heastie aide, and John Tritt, a political director with the 32 BJ union, to senior roles in the speaker\u2019s office, according to sources. The politically powerful HTC and 32 BJ unions both played key roles in swinging the speaker\u2019s race for Menin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Incoming City Council Speaker Julie Menin is expected to tap Miguelina Camilo, a Bronx Democratic Party operative and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,301,302,19077,43413,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-91687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-city-council","tag-city-hall","tag-julie-menin","tag-miguelina-camilo","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91687","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=91687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}