Incoming City Council Speaker Julie Menin is expected to tap Miguelina Camilo, a Bronx Democratic Party operative and onetime state Senate candidate, to serve as the chamber’s chief of staff, sources familiar with the matter told the Daily News on Tuesday.
As Council chief of staff, Camilo would be Menin’s right hand, responsible for lining up support for legislation, liaising with the chamber’s 50 other members and managing the body’s day-to-day operations. A source close to her also said she’d be one of the Council’s first female chiefs of staff.
Camilo, who has most recently been serving as counsel to State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday afternoon. Menin’s team declined to comment.
Menin is expected to be formally elected Council speaker during its first meeting of the year set for Wednesday afternoon.
A former vice president of the Bronx Democratic Party, Camilo is best known in NYC politics for launching an ultimately unsuccessful 2022 primary challenge against State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a progressive Democrat and key ally to Mayor Mamdani.
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 who didn’t actually reside in his Senate district spanning north Bronx neighborhoods like Fordham, Belmont and Riverdale.
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.
Council insiders suggested Camilo’s political background could unnerve some of the chamber’s left-leaning members, especially as the body prepares to work with Mamdani, a democratic socialist.
“They’re rolling their eyes over there,” said one person close to Council progressives.
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 being rolled out by the mayor related to rooting out “junk fees.”
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 on Mamdani when it comes to the most left-leaning aspects of his agenda.
Besides Camilo, Menin is expected to hire Bhav Tibrewal, the political director of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, Simone Jones, another former Heastie aide, and John Tritt, a political director with the 32 BJ union, to senior roles in the speaker’s office, according to sources. The politically powerful HTC and 32 BJ unions both played key roles in swinging the speaker’s race for Menin.
