By Dee Richard
On Thursday, June 2, the Queens Museum of Art held its Annual Gala at the museum itself. The evening's three honorees were former Forest Hills resident Art Garfunkel of Simon & Garfunkel fame, Jean Barrett, formerly of Woodside and the executive director of the Long Island City-based Metropolitan Taxi Cab Board of Trade, and former Queens resident Alan Suna, the CEO of Silvercup Studios in Long Island City.The museum had better hurry up with its expansion plans, as at this year's gala they were bursting at the seams and would be hard pressed to try and find room for one more table.While pursuing our eternal quest for photo ops, our camera lens focused on many of their prestigious guests. These included Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Borough President Helen Marshall and her husband Don, former Borough President Claire Schulman, first vice president of New York Community Bank Georgiana Reese, Terry Osbourne, assistant commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation Estelle Cooper, former Assemblyman Barry Grodenchik, City Councilman Eric Gioia, director of Queens public affairs for Con Edison Carol Conslato, Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski, vice president of Roslyn Bank Dan Murphy, Steve Chen of Crystal Windows and Door Systems, Domenick and Rose Ciampa, and the list goes on and on.On Friday, June 3, in the morning the Queens County Republican Organization held an early breakfast at Roma View in Howard Beech. The purpose of the breakfast was to introduce Ed Cox to the Queens County Republican district leaders. Ed is the son-in-law of former President Richard M. Nixon and is married to Nixon's daughter Patricia. They have one son, Christopher.Ed was testing the waters to see if a run against U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton is feasible. As of this moment he is the prospective 2006 Republican/Conservative United States senatorial candidate. He was quite impressive and has many admirable qualifications. He will be a rather formidable candidate. This will be the kind of race we political junkies salivate over. We love tough competitive races. Shooting fish in a barrel is not our idea of fun. As we see it, if candidates aspire to high office, let us see them work for it. We can't wait for the games to begin.Speaking of the Hillary Clinton's Senate race, we ran into an interesting fellow at the Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade. His name is William Brenner. He had driven down from Grahamsville, N.Y., to announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate position. He claims to have the support of both the Republican and Conservative parties in his part of the state. According to his card his platform is “dedicated to keeping jobs and industries in New York where they belong!”Brenner was accompanied by his Dalmatian dog, Bullet, and a child's wagon carrying his political paraphernalia. We slipped up by being so busy covering the parade that we did not have the time to get Bullet's opinion or input on Brenner's position. Oh well, it's early in the game. Perhaps our paths (or Wagons), will cross again.On Wednesday, June 8, the New York State Honorary Fire Chiefs Honored the New York City Fire Departments Chaplains at a dinner at the Fire Department Training Academy on Randalls Island. The respective chaplains were Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Rev. Stephen Harding and Rev. Monsignor John Delendick and the Rev. Monsignor Filacchione. The dinner was also attended by New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scopetta. The New York State Honorary Fire Chiefs is an interesting organization. It was founded in 1950, so it has been around for quite a while.This time of year is petition gathering time, a busy time for all political parties for important reasons. If you do not obtain the required number of valid signatures on your petitions, your name can not appear on the ballot. Needless to say, if your name is not on the ballot, you can't possibly get elected.On Saturday, June 4, northeast Queens Republicans started handing out their petitions for signatures at a breakfast sponsored by the Whitestone Republican Club at the Reception House in Flushing to kick off their petition drive.On Tuesday, June 7, northeast Queens Democrats started handing out their petitions for signatures at the Jefferson Democratic Club meeting in the American Legion Post on 33rd Avenue in Bayside to kick off their petition drive. The Jefferson Club is sponsoring Tony Avella for council.The Republicans are sponsoring Peter Boudouvas for Avella's seat. Peter has secured endorsement of the Conservative, Republican and Independence Party lines. He was also endorsed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and state Sen. Frank Padavan at the breakfast.Good luck to all the respective candidates may the best man win.That's it for this week. Remember, we love hearing from you, so keep the voice mails at 718-767-6484 the faxes at 718-746-0066 and the e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.Till next week,Dee.
