Queens Borough President Donnie Richards hires Transportation Alternatives lobbyist as "liaison" for transportation

 

 Queens Chronicle

Laura Shepard, chair of Community Board 2’s Environment, Parks and Recreation Committee, as well as an outspoken member of the Transportation Committee, announced her resignation at last Thursday’s board meeting.

Shepard is moving up to Queens Borough President Donovan Richards’ office, to serve as a transportation and parks liaison.

“I’m really going to actually miss serving with all of you,” Shepard said, reminiscing on her four years as a board member. Shepard, a former Queens Chronicle contributor, started as a reporter, sitting on the sidelines watching the board meetings, before making her way to the microphone for public comment and finally joining the panel.

“I just want to thank you all for your hard work and dedication to the community,” Shepard added. “And, going forward, I want to see you all at celebrations, not vigils.”

Y'all remember her. She was the one yelling along with other TransAlt minions at Vickie Paladino who were sabotaging the DOT's fake workshop to induce a bike lane in a mostly commercial traffic corridor. She and her pals were also calling her and the community against it "white supremacists" People should also be aware that the Queens DOT offices just happen to be inside Queens Borough Hall. If only Donald Manes was alive to see this.

 

Queens Victoria

 

 City And State

“Go fuck yourself.” 

“Go fuck yourself, how’s that?”

That’s how Republican New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino responded to a man she thought was a squatter outside a Whitestone, Queens, home after she called the dilapidated property “a disgrace.” The August 2022 exchange between the small, straight-talking lawmaker and a very surly large man smoking a joint was filmed by her staffer. Paladino chose to post it online, and, like much Paladino content, it went viral. 

Paladino drove by the house on her way to work after a constituent complained, not expecting to meet the man face to face. “We won’t have this goings on in this neighborhood,” she tells the man shortly before he exhales his marijuana smoke in her face. “It won’t happen. It just won’t happen.”

Paladino flipped “this neighborhood” red by a razor-thin margin in 2021. Months after his loss to her that year, Democratic former state Sen. Tony Avella said, “It may be necessary to create an unofficial government in exile in order to show the rest of the city she does not properly represent Northeast Queens.”

That’s the thing, though: She does represent Northeast Queens. Everything about the alleged squatter video – Paladino’s nerve, her husky voice and her intolerance of the appearance of the man’s house and his blasé attitude – is just so Northeast Queens, and so Vickie Paladino, the Republican lawmaker known for her silver hair, direct confrontations and extreme right-wing politics.

She carried the district by 20 points in her 2023 rematch against Avella. President Donald Trump – who Paladino passionately supports – won back the White House in November with the strongest show of support in New York in decades, making dramatic gains in New York City. That rightward shift has been brewing in Queens for several election cycles, as Paladino’s popularity evinces. Many may find her extreme online rhetoric about immigrants and transgender people, congestion pricing and vaccine mandates abhorrent, but when you visit her in her district office and see how people respond to her in real life, it’s difficult to deny that what she is doing is working politically.

“I think if you’re going to talk objectively and talk about what’s going to lead to the most electoral success (for the GOP) – especially on the heels of President Trump’s results in the city and state – the only direction is to embrace a more populist, MAGA tone and direction,” said New York Young Republican Club President Gavin Wax. “And that’s embodied by Vickie Paladino.”

Paladino is aware of her reputation. When I tell her the question my Gen Z friends and millennial peers have asked me most often about her over my three years covering her – “Is she actually crazy?” – the 70-year-old laughs. “I love it when they ask that.”

Council Member Chi Ossé, the progressive, TikTok-loving 26-year-old lawmaker from  Bedford-Stuyvesant, has been among Paladino’s harshest critics, particularly online. So you can imagine my surprise when, at the end of a contentious council meeting on Mayor Eric Adams’ City of Yes housing proposal, I saw Paladino and Ossé among the few still lingering in the council chamber, laughing together – hard. What was so funny? “We said we’d be, like, the best of friends if we weren’t living in alternate universes – but we do,” Paladino said, “alternate universes,” meaning “far left, far right, whatever you want to call it.”

“We have so many disagreements … I would say she’s my rival, in a way, my tether,” Ossé said a few minutes later. “But … whether you like what she says or not, she tells it like it is – she’s truthful, she’s upfront. And I think in a world of politicians who bundle a bunch of things up through niceties and fakeness, Vickie’s 100% herself.”

Paladino and AOC debate on immigration crisis

 

 Queens Chronicle

Community Board 7’s meeting on Monday quickly became a battleground over the politically divisive migrant crisis between possibly the two most ideologically opposed politicians in Queens: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, Queens) and Councilmember Vickie Paladino (R-Whitestone).

The board used the congresswoman’s rare visit as an opportunity for residents to ask questions. When one person inquired as to what is being done to ease the effects of the city’s influx of migrants, Ocasio-Cortez explained that the city just recently applied for some of the funding Congress authorized in December for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

She added that hotel groups, among other kinds of companies, want migrants to fill their job vacancies, and have asked that the Biden administration speed up the work authorization process to make it happen.

That’s when Paladino cut in: “You’ve been talking about immigration — you and I are going to disagree vehemently on that.”

“To say we’ve passed our maximum capacity doesn’t even cover it,” Paladino said. “There’s no jobs. Everybody’s getting things for free.”

In February, the city’s unemployment rate was 5.4 percent. Statewide it was 4.2 percent and nationwide 3.6. Economists broadly consider between 3 and 5 percent to be strong.

Ocasio-Cortez reiterated her previous point. “When it comes to jobs, we do know that those jobs are there — we’ve worked with industry professionals ... they have confirmed that those jobs are there,” she said. “What they’re asking is that we help cut the red tape so that they can engage in some of this hiring.”

Soon after, Paladino asked whether the congresswomen had said migrants would be “up first” for jobs in the hotel industry. Ocasio-Cortez replied, “I don’t think they have like a waiting list that they’re maintaining, but they’re saying that they have these vacancies, that they’ve been trying to fill them and that they have not been able to.”

She added that the city is aiming to get a significant chunk of the $8 billion allocated for FEMA nationwide; one figure that has been floated, she said, is $4 billion.

Paladino was less than convinced, saying, “We don’t see the money.”

“We’re going broke, and our citizens here who are hurting really, really, really badly are getting stepped over in order to accommodate the immigration problem,” she said, pointing to crime, among other things. “Native New Yorkers are not being cared for the way they should be cared for because of what’s been coming over the border.”

Later, she added, “It’s time to close that damn border.”

 

City Council members call for caucus on crime with fellow electeds

Queens Post

Three Queens council members who are members of the Commonsense Caucus say their legislative colleagues are out of touch when it comes to tackling crime and have called on them to get tough on improving public safety.

Council members Bob Holden, Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola want their fellow lawmakers to take a hardline approach to crime which they say is spiraling out of control. Major crime in New York City is up nearly 27.5 percent this year compared to the same time last year, according to police data.

The lawmakers told the Queens Post last month that residents are living in fear with many afraid to walk the streets or take the subway— such is the severity of the situation. Others have left the city altogether, according to Holden.

The caucus members say it’s time for city and state lawmakers to start sticking up for law-abiding citizens by taking legislative action, engaging with their local police precincts and calling out crimes in their districts when they see them.

“I lived through the 70s and 80s and we’re going back to that,” said Holden, a Democrat who represents the 30th Council District in central Queens.

“My constituents are all worried. My wife, who is Asian American, will not set foot in the subway.”

The lawmakers argue that much of the city’s crime spike can be attributed to what they call “far-left policies” such as bail reform laws, the denigration of the police and their powers, as well progressive district attorney’s not prosecuting crimes.

These policies, the caucus members claim, have empowered criminals and led them to believe they won’t get punished. Many crimes, the lawmakers say, are caused by repeat offenders.

“It’s out of control because it’s absolute lawlessness,” said Paladino, a Republican who represents the 19^th Council District in northeast Queens.

“If you don’t have a city that backs their cops or wants to do anything to change it then that’s a problem. And then we have our District Attorneys who aren’t doing their jobs either, they’re not prosecuting so it’s a turnstile system and it’s failing miserably.”

Many crimes too, the lawmakers argue, are being carried out by the mentally ill who they say should be forced to get treatment. Instead, many of these people are sleeping in the subways and roaming the streets putting residents at risk, the caucus members say.

However, many progressive lawmakers challenge this narrative and say that the city is in not in the midst of a crime wave.

They say that murders are in fact down by more than 12 percent from this time last year– and that crime is down compared to the Giuliani and Bloomberg years of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Furthermore, they say that the rate of defendants being released under bail reform and then violently reoffending has seen little change since the reforms went into effect at the beginning of 2020. The rate went from 3 percent in 2019—prior to the reforms—to 4 percent in 2021, according to a report issued by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Additionally, progressive Councilmember Tiffany Cabán has played down concerns about subway attacks, tweeting in September that violence on the system is a “one-in-a-million event.” She said that while the attacks were concerning, “let’s not let fear-mongering politicians and corporate media outlets scare us into thinking we have a dangerous, scary public transit system.”

The great Mizumi zoning controversy

Queens Chronicle 

The City Council voted 50-0 to approve a C2-2 commercial overlay last Thursday that will allow Douglaston’s Mizumi restaurant to expand significantly, which Councilmember Vickie Paladino (R-Whitestone) supported despite overwhelming opposition from area civic leaders.

The original plan, which Community Board 11 voted unanimously against in May, extended the commercial overlay from the western end of the Mizumi property to 234th Street. Though Borough President Donovan Richards recommended that the overlay be approved — if it only included the Mizumi property — the original plan went before the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises last month, at which point modifications were recommended.

At the time, civic leaders believed that modification to be the same as Richards’ plan; following last Thursday’s vote, however, they were informed that is not the case. Though smaller than the original overlay, it will extend to 233rd Street, and therefore includes two additional properties: the carwash two doors down and the adjacent abandoned church.

Sean Walsh, president of the Douglaston Civic Association, said the move once again calls Paladino’s transparency into question.

“I feel double-betrayed,” he told the Chronicle. Referring to the councilmember, he continued, “I feel insulted that you can lie to me so bald-faced ... now I’m going to have to go full tilt against you.”

And that he did. At Monday’s Community Board 11 meeting, he and several others made their discontent with Paladino clear. Flushing land-use expert Paul Graziano even went through each point in Paladino’s subsequent press release on the matter, detailing his objections to each. Both Third Vice Chair Henry Euler and board member Doug Montgomery noted that they were not informed of the additions to the overlay. Montgomery said Monday that a City Planning Commission employee told him the added properties were incorporated after the vote; the Chronicle did not receive confirmation of that by press time.

Paladino has stood by her decision, which she has touted as a compromise, and says she did not flip-flop on the issue. “I did what was best to serve the community, the small business owner and the environment,” Paladino said. “This was a homerun.”

 

Council Member Paladino gets smoke blown at her by squatter next door

There’s a known squatter house in my district at 20th Ave and 146th street in College Point. This morning I viewed the house and confronted the squatters personally.

This will not stand on my watch. Homeowners have rights and our neighborhoods deserve better. More action coming. pic.twitter.com/8Qtr6y5cnr

— Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) August 15, 2022

Ihr Kampf with mandate analogy

 

 QNS

Newly elected northeast Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino walked back an explosive comment made during an interview on NY1 about her refusal to disclose her COVID-19 vaccination status to City Council officials last week.

“I don’t need to show my papers. This is not Nazi Germany,” Paladino said during that interview.

On Tuesday, Paladino said she made the “ill-considered and inappropriate comparison” during an hours-long interview, and asked that it be struck from the record, but took “complete ownership of that mistake.”

“While my intent was to illustrate that requiring residents to show medical papers to earn a living or do everyday activities is an authoritarian practice that does not align with this country’s principles, it is never OK to compare anything to the evil of Nazi Germany,” Paladino said in a statement. “I apologize to those who were genuinely offended by my comment.”

She added that she would meet with local Jewish officials and her friends in the Jewish community in the coming days to discuss the matter.

The controversy arose nearly a week after Paladino was refused entry to the City Council’s first stated meeting of the new year.

The 67-year-old Republican refused to disclose her COVID-19 vaccination status and was told by officials she would be barred from the chamber floor on Wednesday, Jan. 5. There has been no resolution to the standoff, and Paladino continues to oppose any effort to require people to disclose their vaccination status as a condition of employment or for any other reason.

“The idea that we are now essentially blackmailing people by threatening their jobs and their livelihoods is what is eroding public trust in vaccines,” said Robert Hornak, a Paladino spokesman. “People should be allowed to make their own decision on their healthcare. And nobody should be forced to disclose their personal medical information to anyone. Everyone has a right to privacy and that includes medical privacy. We will continue to stand up for that right as long as people are trying to use heavy-handed tactics to force their will on others.”

City Council Code Red

 

NY Post

Republicans won four contested City Council races in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island and had a shot at taking a fifth in a potential upset.

Republican Inna Vernikov thumped her Democratic opponent Steve Saperstein for an open seat In southern Brooklyn’s 48th Council District by nearly 30 points.

With 87 percent of the vote in, Vernikov, a 37-year-old lawyer and Ukraine native, garnered 10,768 votes, or 65 percent of the vote, to 5,870 votes, or 35 percent, for Saperstein.

She will succeed ex-Councilman Chaim Deutsch, who forfeited his seat earlier this year when he was convicted of tax fraud.

The district includes many Russian-speaking and Jewish immigrants in the communities of Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Homecrest.

Vernikov ran as an unabashed supporter of former President Donald Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. endorsed her in a robocall to voters. She also opposed coronavirus vaccine mandates.

“I’m very excited. This election victory shows that the people are fed up with the progressive policies that have destroyed our city and district,” Vernikov told The Post last night.

“I hope to open the door for other Republicans and serve the district with honor and integrity.”

Meanwhile, Joann Ariola kept the 32nd District, encompassing the beach communities in eastern Queens, in Republican hands.

Ariola, the Queens Republican leader and a Howard Beach civic activist, trounced lefty Democratic progressive Felica Singh with 16,040 votes, or 67 percent, to 7,443 votes or 31 percent for Singh, who was backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

 Meanwhile, in Staten Island’s mid-island 50th Council District, Republican David Carr defeated Democrat Sal Albanse, a former Brooklyn councilman who moved to the borough five years ago.

With 99 percent of the vote in, Carr captured 19,295 votes, or 61 percent, to 10,082 votes, or 32 percent, for Albanese. Conservative Party candidate George Wonica received 2,273 or 7 percent of the vote.

Carr, who was chief of staff to outgoing Councilman Steve Matteo, will succeed his boss.

Meanwhile, a Republican candidate pulled off an upset in the 19th Council District in northeastern Queens.

Vickie Paladino led former Democratic Councilman Tony Avella with 99 percent of the votes in. Paladino had the support of 12,143 votes, or 50 percent, to 10,490, or 43 percent, for Avella. John-Alexander Sakelos, running on the Conservative and Save Our City lines, received 1,729 votes or 7 percent.

 

Return of the Avella

For all the huffing and puffing the "no IDC" people did years back, it certainly didn't stick very long in the 19th Council District in northeast Queens. You had Richard "Baby Bear" Lee get buoyed by the Andrew Yang vote and Austin Shafran with the biggest unions backing him but former State Senator Tony Avella, the council member prior to Dan Halloran, bested them both. Dem voters in this district sought the familiar rather than a newcomer and didn't give much of a shit about progressive conspiracy theories. Avella will meet Vickie Paladino (R) and John-Alexander Sakelos (C) in the general election.

Paladino, Sullivan, Barnwell, Cruz win primaries

These numbers come from NY1:

STATE ASSEMBLY - QUEENS (D) DISTRICT 30
• Precincts Reported: 82/82

Brian 5,214
Barnwell
64.2%

Melissa 2,902
Sklarz
35.8%


STATE ASSEMBLY - QUEENS (D) DISTRICT 39
• Precincts Reported: 56/56

Catalina 3,736
Cruz
53.5%

Ari 3,016
Espinal
43.2%

Yonel 225
Sosa
3.2%


STATE SENATE - QUEENS (R) DISTRICT 11

• Precincts Reported: 224/224
Vickie 1,640
Paladino
57.3%

Simon 1,220
Minching
42.7%

STATE SENATE - QUEENS (R) DISTRICT 15
• Precincts Reported: 223/224

Thomas 3,188
Sullivan
67.9%

Slawomir 1,508
Platta
32.1%