New Speaker Menin Mum On Possible COPA Veto

Newly elected City Council Speaker Julie Menin, officially elected to lead the chamber on Wednesday afternoon, already has pressing business to address: a score of vetoes issued by former Mayor Eric Adams on his final day in office.

Among them is the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, passed with a 31-10 majority on the last day of the council’s 2025 legislative session. Menin abstained from the vote on COPA in December as a rank-and-file council member, but as speaker, she now has 30 days to exercise her option to override Adams’ 19 vetoes, which included an array of other housing-related reforms as well as COPA.

Menin condemned Adams’ move, alleging that he “sidelined the legislative process” for years, allowed commissioners to skip hearings and delayed vital negotiations. Her office will be examining all of the vetoed bills, she said in a Dec. 31 statement.

In a statement to Bisnow this week, Menin again declined to stake a public position on COPA and whether she would seek to override the COPA veto.

“I appreciate the many stakeholders who have engaged on this issue with thoughtful debate,” she told Bisnow on Tuesday. “There are a range of perspectives on COPA, and it’s important that the Council consider next steps on all vetoes.”

As speaker, Menin has sway over which legislation reaches the floor of the council chambers, so the real estate industry waits in limbo to hear the fate of the law it has vigorously lambasted.

COPA requires landlords of some distressed properties to offer both select nonprofits and for-profit companies the first opportunity to bid on properties and the chance to match private market offers. Brokers have previously told Bisnow it could chill the market for investment by complicating an exit strategy. Attorneys have said it would likely be challenged in the courts. 

Crucially, the legislation is the only measure nixed by Adams that didn't pass with a veto-proof majority — making it unclear if it has the support to be overridden.

Menin may feel under pressure to override COPA's veto, given Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign trail support for the measure. If she does so, the bill would need 34 votes to pass another city council hearing.

Because a handful of city council seats changed hands this month, that is a possibility. At least four of those seats — belonging to Democratic representatives Robert Holden, Francisco Moya and Justin Brannan, as well as Republican Councilwoman Kristy Marmarato — were replaced by new Democratic candidates. 

Before COPA’s December passage, Council Member Darlene Mealy, in a coordinated effort with state Sen. Sam Sutton, had eked out a fragile coalition of opposition to the bill.

“Those flipped votes were the difference between COPA passing with a veto-proof supermajority,” the Brooklyn Democrat wrote in a Dec. 30 op-ed. “We’ll need to convince the eight new council members taking office in January why they should oppose the bill.”