By Phil Corso
Flushing attorney Paul Vallone came out victorious after a heated City Council campaign in northeast Queens and will replace embattled Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) in 2014.
By the end of voting Tuesday night, Vallone beat Republican candidate Dennis Saffran, an attorney from Douglaston, with 57.2 percent of the vote, preliminary results from the Associated Press showed. Saffran had 42.8 percent of the vote.
The win secured Vallone his spot in the previously red 19th District, which includes Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck and Whitestone.
It had been widely expected that the race would be among the tightest in the city with the Republicans having a good shot at keeping the seat. But the strong GOP showing never materialized in face of the historic landslide victory by Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio.
]Vallone celebrated the win at a crowded victory party at Vivaldi of Bayside, jam-packed with Queens Democrats such as state Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside) and state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) as well as members of the Vallone clan.
“District 19 got its Council seat back,” Vallone yelled after declaring victory around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night at the party. “The good guys did it today.”
The election also meant the end of Halloran’s first term in the Council after the incumbent announced he would not seek re-election following a federal indictment earlier this year. Halloran was arrested April 2 and charged with soliciting bribes to help propel Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Hollis) into the mayoral race as a Republican and bowed out of the public eye so he could instead focus his attention on restoring his name, he said.
Halloran’s arrest made for a tense political climate in northeast Queens, setting the stage for a crowded Democratic primary season. Vallone bested four others in the primary run for the Democratic nomination, including Empire State Development spokesman Austin Shafran, urban planning consultant Paul Graziano, former Assemblyman John Duane and former Halloran Chief of Staff Chrissy Voskerichian.
Even on Election Day the embattled Republican sent shockwaves through the northeast Queens district when he posted on his Facebook page that he would be casting his ballot across party lines in Vallone’s favor. He congratulated Vallone on his win the following day in a statement.
“The Vallone family’s tradition of public service continues and I am sure Paul will work diligently for us,” Halloran said. “My staff is already hard at work to ease the transition and make sure that our constituents will continue to enjoy the exemplary record of community service my office maintained over the last four years.”
Saffran fired off a statement after the news broke, linking voters to a video from a candidate forum last month in which Vallone remarked on how important public support was in the race.
“As Paul Vallone himself said at the Bayside Historical Society Candidate’s Night: ‘Any candidate…you have to ask them…who is standing with you?’ Now we have our answer,” Saffran’s campaign said in the statement.
The contentious primary brought some flak for Vallone after Jobs for New York, a political action committee for the Real Estate Board of New York, started mailing out attack ads in support of the Flushing attorney’s campaign. All of his Democratic opponents decried the ads, and the hot-button issue carried over into the general election race.
Saffran, backed by the Queens GOP soon after Halloran’s legal troubles surfaced, ran for the same 19th District seat in 2001 and lost by just under 400 votes to now-Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside).
Key issues throughout the race from the Democratic primary through Tuesday’s election revolved largely around preserving the character of the suburban northeast Queens district and restoring faith in government.
Reach reporter Phil Corso by e-mail at pcorso@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
