By Dee Richard
Will the real GOP Queens chairman please stand up? That seems to be the question being asked in certain areas of the Republican organization in Queens. On Sept. 15 this year, the primaries were held in the county.
What this meant was that within 30 days of the primary the organization had to first hold a state Assembly district reorganization meeting, whose purpose was to elect district chairpersons in the Assembly districts. With this event, certain positions were appointed only for that meeting.
One such position was that of recording secretary. The recording secretary is responsible for taking the minutes of the meeting, which are subsequently filed with the city Board of Elections.
After the Assembly districts’ reorganization, the county as a whole must meet and hold a reorganization meeting for the county organization. This is comprised of all the county Assembly districts and all the elected party members in the county who must appear in person or by proxy. Any individuals in possession of a proxy can vote it.
At the county reorganization meeting, a county chairman is elected to preside over the county committee, mimicking on a borough-wide scale the election of district chairmen in the Assembly districts. The sole purpose of the county chairman is, two years later after the election, to call for the reorganization meeting for the county.
The county has another governing body called the executive board. The board’s voting members are made up of the state committee people from each Assembly district and the district chairpersons of those districts. These are the only people who have voting privileges on the executive board. The board is the governing body that runs the day-to-day operations of the county, including nominating and endorsing people to run for office and appointing people to work at the Board of Elections.
The meeting to reorganize the executive board must be held within five days of the reorganization of the county committee, but not before the county committee meeting. At that time, the executive members of the board are elected by the board itself. Thus, the county has two titles: chairman of the county committee — which is ceremonial — and chairman of the executive board, who oversees the day-to-day operations.
At the end of these meetings the minutes are taken, which by law must be filed with the Board of Elections within a time limit.
It appears one group within the party, led by Bart Haggerty, held an executive board meeting within the statutory time and filed the results in a timely manner with the Board of Elections.
The other group, led by County Chairman Phil Ragusa, did not.
Fourteen years ago, the control of the party went to a group of insurgents from southwest Queens who were successful in gaining control. Every two years since that time, battles have ensued to elect friendly state and county committee members to take back the party. It took 14 years to accomplish this, at least in terms of the executive board. Stay tuned for part two.
On Friday afternoon, the Northeast Queens United Group donated $5,000 to St. Mary’s Hospital for Children. This represented the proceeds they raised at the Bowne Park Halloween party.
There was a memorial service on Saturday morning for Mary Anderson in the Chapel of St. Mary’s Cemetery in Flushing. Her ashes will be interred with her husband, Tim. Afterwards, more than 20 of Mary’s family and friends and our “girls’ night out” group who could make it had a lovely luncheon at Donovan’s in Bayside. State Sen. Frank Padavan attended the memorial, but regretfully could not join us at the luncheon, which was provided by Mary’s daughter, Joann.
On Sunday at 1 p.m., I attended the 11th-annual Toys for Tots event that started in Maspeth and ended at St. Mary’s Hospital in Bayside. There were more than 100 antique car buffs in the motorcade as well as numerous bikers. All the toys were packed in a Vietnam veterans bus for delivery to the hospital.
That’s it for this week.
I look forward to hearing from you with information on people, parties and politics or gossip.
I like receiving your voice mails at 718-767-6484, faxes at 718-746-0066 and e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.
Till next week, Dee.
