Congressional Candidates’ Night In Glendale
Three lawmakers seeking to win the new Sixth Congressional District seat in central Queens sought to win over Glendale voters during a candidates’ night forum hosted by the Glendale Property Owners Association (GPOA) at their meeting last Thursday night, May 3, at St. Pancras Pfeifer Hall.
Among the hopefuls welcomed by GPOA President Brian Dooley were two Democrats seeking the party’s nomination for the seat in a June 26 primary: City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley of Glendale and Assemblyman Rory Lancman of Hillcrest.
City Council Member Daniel Halloran of Bayside, the presumptive Republican nominee who is not challenged in the June primary, also stumped for votes at last Thursday’s session.
Absent from the forum, however, was Assemblywoman Grace Meng, another Democrat vying for the Congressional nomination, whose candidacy was endorsed by the Queens County Democratic Party.
Taking the fight to D.C.
Crowley was the first candidate to take the microphone, and she told residents that, if elected, she would champion on Capitol Hill many of the issues she currently advocates at City Hall.
“I want to take my fight for Glendale families and middle class families to Washington,” the Council member said. She noted that she would support the efforts of Glendale residents to have a separate ZIP code established for the neighborhood, which currently shares the 11385 ZIP code with Ridgewood.
Crowley pledged to fight efforts to privatize Social Security and Medicare, noting that these programs are relied upon by thousands of senior citizens and families across the city. She noted that, as a child, the Social Security benefits received by her family following the death of her father helped put “food on the table.”
“We need to make sure that we have a strong Congressional member that’s going to fight to protect Medicare and Social Security,” she said.
The Council member also stated that she would work to help make college tuition more affordable for all students by fighting a proposed interest rate hike. She also pledged to work to expand health care access for women.
“Our access is decreasing, especially here in New York City,” Crowley said, citing as one factor the recent closure of hospitals in Queens. “More and more private practitioners, especially as it relates to women’s health or prenatal care, are” leaving the city, she added.
Crowley also stated her support of President Barack Obama’s recent announcement of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by 2014, and stated that the resources spent on the decade-long war should be shifted toward job creation and homeland security services for New York City and other potential targets for terrorism.
“I’m going to be the Congress member that follows our tax dollars to make sure we get our fair share in New York City,” the lawmaker said, adding that she would advocate for federal funding toward mass transportation improvements and other “projects that will improve the quality of our life.”
Against ‘career politicians’
Touting his record of public service to the city, Halloran told residents that his ultimate goal in Congresss was not to be a “career politician,” but rather “to go up, make a difference and then come back home” to work in the community.
“I know what it’s like to lead the regular American life,” he said. “I have no intention of parking myself in Washington for very long, because once [politicians] are entrenched, they don’t care about you. They care about being re-elected.”
In making his pitch to residents, Halloran focused on job creation, energy and foreign policy, charging that the Obama administration has failed on all three fronts to make improvements beneficial to all Americans.
Regarding job creation, Halloran disputed a recent report of a decline in the unemployment rate, charging that was the result not of a significant boost in job creation, but rather the result of long-term unemployed residents who no longer receive jobless benefits and/or have given up looking for work.
“Despite throwing literally trillions of dollars into TARP programs, we have not gained the benefit. The government can’t create jobs,” the Council member said. “Unfortunately, it’s the second largest employer in the U.S., and that should frighten everyone, because we have moved away from the private sector and put in the hands of government something it can’t do.”
Halloran also criticized the president on his support of Israel in its efforts to thwart Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. He compared the situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and argued that Obama should support Israel’s right to defend itself rather then to “stand down.”
“Nobody told us to stand down in 1962, when we sent our fleet in and blockaded the routes to Cuba,” the lawmaker said. “Iran is not a rational actor; the Soviet Union was. … Iran is a country that took our ambassadorial staff hostage in 1979.”
Turning to energy, Halloran also attacked the president for “killing the Keystone Pipeline” and continuing a moratorium on offshore drilling, adding that both projects have the potential to create thousands of new jobs and lower energy expenses.
“What’s your summer gas cost going to be when we hit $5 a gallon?” the legislator said. “It’s crazy, and it’s only going to get worse.”
Many of the problems the nation’s currently facing, Halloran stated, are the result of “career politicians: people who have never had a real job in their life, who live in an ivory tower in Washington, who have never had to make decisions with a checkbook and a wallet and a bank account that doesn’t have millions of dollars in it.”
The legislator also explained his opposition to the “living wage bill” recently passed by the City Council, charging that it would help only a few people but increase the expenses of businesses across the city.
“What would fix the living wage problem? How about keeping more of our paychecks instead of giving more to the government?” he suggested.
‘Leveling the playing field’
Lancman pledged to residents that he would work in Congress to “level the playing field” for working class New Yorkers on a variety of issues facing them.
“The deck is really stacked against working people,” he said, noting that in his first experience in community involvement as a teenager, he helped the tenants in his rent-stabilized apartment building successfully defeat a proposed rent increase.
“I realized that the deck is stacked against working people, but you can do something about it if you’re willing to be an advocate and a leader,” Lancman stated, noting that prior to being elected to the Assembly, he served as a member of Community Board 8 and with his local civic group. “I did that to protect my neighborhood from the overdevelopers, from the polluters, from the people who wanted to do things and put things in my neighborhood that was against the interest of us as residents.”
During his tenure in Albany, Lancman stated that he championed efforts to pass legislation on a variety of issues, including bills to protect whistleblowers and journalists from libel suits for reporting about suspected terrorists, a “millionaire’s tax” to close the state budget gap and increasing workplace safety.
If elected to Congress, Lancman pledged to continue those efforts “to level the playing field and protect our interests,” pointing in particular to reforming the tax system and helping college students afford their education.
“If you look at the way the tax system works in this country, the Mitt Romneys of the world pay a lower tax rate than ordinary Americans,” Lancman said, referring to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. “It’s a system that honors wealth over work. This system needs to change.”
The assemblyman also stated that Congress also needs to tackle Social Security reform in order to ensure that those who are currently children will be able to have some retirement benefits decades from now.
“How are our kids going to retire 40 or 50 years from now when we have a Social Security system that won’t be able to make payouts 20 years from now?” he said.
Lancman also stated that he would work on a variety of local issues including legislation to alleviate noise and air pollution experienced by residents living near local freight rail lines.
The next Glendale Property Owners Association meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday night, June 7, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Pancras Pfeifer Hall, located at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and 68th Street.
