NEW YORK — Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin have been stoking an increasingly contentious feud that could end up hampering the mayor’s agenda.
When Mamdani announced a plan to build a city-owned grocery store Sunday, Menin released a statement saying she would need to get input from local businesses before getting on board. She implicitly criticized the administration for scrubbing mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion from a draft racial equity report. And she blasted Mamdani’s threat to raise property taxes — particularly toxic in Black communities — at an event hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton and attended by the mayor.
The Council has raised questions about the mayor’s nominee for the city’s Department of Investigation. And a previously unreported internal union memo shows Menin helped plan a protest outside the mayor’s 100-day speech in Queens on Sunday — an unusual and major escalation of tensions — though both she and the labor organization denied any plotting took place, chalking the counterprogramming up to a misunderstanding…