The 40-year Vallone legacy will live on in City Hall.
Paul Vallone, 46, will carry his family’s name in the City Council for the next four years after winning election Tuesday to lead District 19 in northeast Queens.
Vallone beat Republican Dennis Saffran with 57.2 percent of the vote, as of midnight with all precincts reporting, according to preliminary results.
“[This] was a five-year journey that finished today,” Vallone said. “The good guys did it today.”
The two were vying to replace scandal-scarred incumbent Dan Halloran, who chose not to seek re-election after his April arrest on bribery charges.
“They attacked. They lied. They lost,” Vallone said of his opponent’s campaign. “Those who lie don’t get a seat in this community anymore.”
Vallone emerged in September as the winner of a crowded Democratic primary race that came down to the wire.
He beat runner-up candidate Austin Shafran by nearly 200 votes after voting machines were checked and paper ballots were counted.
One of Vallone’s primary foes, Paul Graziano, later crossed party lines to endorse Saffran.
Halloran, a Republican, did the same — but to cast his vote for Vallone, he announced on his Facebook page on Election Day.
“Voting today — for the first time in my life voting for a democratic city council candidate and candidate for public advocate,” Halloran wrote on his post, which was accompanied with a photo of Vallone’s campaign flyers.
He later congratulated Vallone with a Facebook post that said, “The Vallone family’s tradition of public service continues and I am sure Paul will work diligently for us.”
Vallone, a Flushing attorney, is the son of former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr. and brother to Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr.
Vallone Sr. represented Astoria from 1974 until 2002 when his oldest son succeeded him. Vallone Jr. is term-limited out of office this year.
“I think it’s very, very important that we have one good, moderate voice in the City Council that can bring both sides together, resulting in a safer city,” said Vallone Sr. “That’s the way I tried to start it in 1974, and we have to do that again. If anybody can do it, it’s Paul Vallone.”
Vallone Jr. shared the same sentiment, saying a “reasonable voice in City Hall is needed more than ever.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of my little brother,” Vallone Jr. said.
This will be the first time in four decades a Vallone will represent northeast Queens instead of Astoria.
The district runs from College Point to Auburndale-Flushing, Bayside, Whitestone, Bay Terrace, Douglaston and Little Neck.
The area’s elected officials, the Queens Democratic Party and civic leaders who endorsed him welcomed the change.
“We’ve restored some sanity to the 19th District,” said Warren Schreiber, president of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance. “The residents can now hold their heads high and be proud.”
