Hevesi Is The New Kid In Town

Andrew Hevesi was sworn into the Assembly in Albany just hours after his special election victory last Tuesday night.
The youngest son of State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, Andrew took in 58 percent of the vote to opponent Anthony Como’s 42 percent.
The seat was open due to Michael Cohen’s resignation for what he called “family obligations” in March. Cohen had served since 1998.
Hevesi told The Queens Courier that he was keeping the same district office and phone number as his predecessor, to make things easier on his constituents.
In an ironic twist, Hevesi’s brother, Dan, represented the area in the Assembly until redistricting in 2002 and his father represented much of the same area in the Assembly for more than two decades.
And he said he’s looking forward to carrying on a family tradition.
“I’ve gotten a great reaction,” Hevesi said. “The people of the district have been overwhelmingly positive and I’m looking forward to working as hard as I can for them and showing them they made the right decision.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of my son or more grateful to the voters of the 28th Assembly district,” said his father Alan. “Andrew Hevesi will be an outstanding legislator.”
Turnout was a record for a special election, with close to 8,000 votes being cast.
Como (see below), a former assistant district attorney in D.A. Richard Brown’s office said of Hevesi, “He’s a good man. One of the things I congratulated him on was that we kept the campaign clean — nothing personal. I thanked him for that. Nowadays, you don’t see that a lot. It was refreshing.”
Hevesi, 31, most recently served as director of community relations for Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. He said it was a baptism by fire in Albany with no time between election night on May 10 and starting the job at 11 a.m. on May 11.
“I’m heading to my first committee meetings today,” Hevesi said Tuesday. “I’m reading up and learning the nuances of the issues. There’s no orientation process — it’s learn as you go.”
editrich@queenscourier.com