Como and Padavan Concede Senate Bids

Two Republican state Senate hopefuls who initially vowed to challenge election results ended their bids. Anthony Como was defeated by Senator Joe Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) in the Senate’s 15th District while longtime Senator Frank Padavan (R- Bellerose) was defeated by former City Councilman Tony Avella in the Senate’s 11th District.

On Election Day, Como, citing serious discrepancies in the numbers, did not concede to Addabbo. Padavan went a step further and filed a complaint in Queens Civil Courthouse to impound the voting machines.

Como, who by unofficial results was down more than 5,000 votes, released a statement on Monday announcing the end of his candidacy.

“It was important to me that every vote be properly counted and although there are remaining discrepancies with some of the machines, it is in the best interest of the community that we move forward and put politics aside,” Como said.

Como congratulated Addabbo and hoped that the issues he campaigned for is not forgotten.

Unofficial tallies showed Padavan down by more than 3,000 votes, and a report on Capital Tonight suggests that voting discrepancies pushed the total to 5,000 in favor of Avella. Padavan decided to drop his complaint and concede.

“It has been a deep honor to serve my country and city and a privilege to serve as a New York State Senator for nearly four decades,” Padavan said in a statement. “Earlier today, I officially ended my pursuit for another term in the State Senate. The voters of the 11th Senate District have spoken and now our community heads in a new direction.”

The 15th Senate District encompasses Forest Hills, Glendale, Hamilton Beach, Howard Beach, Maspeth, Middle Village, Old Howard Beach, Ridgewood, Woodhaven, parts of Elmhurst, Kew Gardens, Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Rego Park, Richmond Hill and South Richmond Hill.

The 11th Senate District includes Queens Village, Flushing, Bayside, Whitestone, Douglaston, Little Neck, College Point, Bellerose, Hollace, Jamaica Estates, Floral Park and Glenn Oaks.

Law Aims to Close Sex Offender Loophole

By Conor Greene

In light of a news report that a registered sex offender is running a karate school in Glendale, a state Senator has introduced legislation that would prohibit convicted sexual abusers from working with children in any capacity.

This week, Fox 5 New York broadcasted an undercover investigation into Edwin Rodriguez, owner of Gem Shotokan Karate on Myrtle Avenue. The outlet reported that, nine years ago, Rodriguez served six months in jail after being found guilty of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl. He was also sentenced to five years probation, which ended more than three years ago, and must register his home address with authorities.

However, while current state law prohibits Rodriguez from holding certain jobs such as teaching or even selling ice-cream, there is nothing that legally prevents him from running the karate school. When approached by Fox 5, Rodriguez claimed he only helps his wife out with the school and only teaches children while supervised.

“I don’t know what to tell you… you know it was just circumstances that happened you know I made a mistake in the past and I’m definitely not a child molester, I’m definitely not a pedophile,” Rodriguez told the station. “You know I can see why everyone would be concerned about this… I can assure you… as I stand right here in front of God that it’s nothing really to be concerned about in terms of what transpired before and what’s going on now.”

In response, state Senator Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) this week introduced legislation to prevent sex offenders from working or volunteering with children. The senator notes that prospective teachers and school bus drivers must undergo background checks, and being on the sex offender registry disqualifies them from those jobs. However, most other jobs that require substantial contact with children do not carry these protections.

“It’s outrageous that a man who committed such a horrendous assault on a young girl could have daily and close contact with other children,” said Padavan. “We cannot wait until this predator strikes again. New York State needs to close this loophole immediately to keep sex offenders away from children.”

According to Parents for Megan’s Law, the typical pedophile commits an average of 280sexual crimes during their lifetime. Rapists repeat their offenses at rates up to 35percent, while offenders who molest young boys repeat their crimes up to 40 percent of the time.

Similar legislation that would ban sex offenders from working with children was introduced in the state Senate twice in recent years, but has not made it to the Senate floor for a vote since Democrats gained the majority in Albany, according to Padavan. The state Assembly has never acted on the legislation, he added.

Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law, told Fox 5 that it is especially disturbing that Rodriguez put himself in a position where he is around children, instead of avoiding any controversy all together. “We are deeply concerned because this is a guy who targeted a minor and he’s put himself in a position in the community where everybody thinks he’s the pied piper… which makes him really dangerous,” she said.

Addabbo Explains Rationale Behind Gay Marriage Vote

Freshman Senator Broke from Party in Rejecting Bill

By Conor Greene

In the wake of the state Senate’s rejection of the marriage equality bill, several of the borough’s representatives have come under fire for voting against the law, which would have provided gay and lesbian residents the right to marry.

While several of the Queens’ Democratic delegation on the state Senate surprised observers with their no votes, one in particular – freshman Senator Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) has come under especially heavy criticism. Addabbo was elected to the Senate last year to replace longtime Republican Serf Maltese, leaving some of the groups and people who worked to elect the Democrat feeling let down when he didn’t support the law.

At the same time, much of Addabbo’s district, which stretches from Woodside south to Howard Beach, is made up of socially conservative voters in neighborhoods such as Glendale and Middle Village who oppose gay marriage. As a result, Addabbo was left in a tough spot as he is now being viewed as a major reason the bill was defeated 32 to 24.

Throughout the weeks of debate leading up to the vote, Addabbo refused to reveal how he personally stands on the issue. Instead, he says that more than 400 constituents contacted his office in the weeks leading up to the vote, on top of the many more he spoke to each day. Addabbo says about three quarters of the constituents he heard from on the issue were against allowing gay marriage. “This decision of mine was totally constituent driven,” continued Addabbo.

“When I took the oath of office, it was to represent the opinions of the people, and it was very clear that… the residents who I represent in Albany are against marriage equality.” He says not divulging his personal stance allowed him to receive an accurate and clear picture of his constituents’ views, instead of just having residents on one side of the debate contact him.

During the interview, Addabbo repeatedly stressed that the role of an elected official is to get the community’s consensus on an issue. “I keep saying that my personal feeling is my personal feeling, and it’s only one opinion, so I take my opinion out of it and go with the views of many,” he said. “When you have issues along the lines of civil rights, religion or other personal beliefs people have, certainly their voices should be heard… When it came time for a vote, my people had been clear.”

While Addabbo called this “one of the hardest” votes he has been part of during his career in politics, he noted that, unlike budget and tax decisions, it only impacts a small portion of the community. “I knew at some point we would have to take up this issue, and there still will be hard issues in the future and I’ll try to get the consensus of my people again in the future,” he said.

Now that a vote has finally been cast on this emotional subject, Addabbo stressed the importance of moving ahead with other state business. “I think the idea here is, we did this issue - which was ery important to many - but we have very serious issues that lie ahead that affect everyone” including budget, education, transportation and public services, he said. “We definitely need to move forward with issues that affect the daily lives of constituents.”

Looking ahead at his own political future, and the possibility that he alienated portions of the Democratic and liberal base that helped get him elected, Addabbo maintained that he never made promises to groups regarding gay marriage.

“One thing I’ve been consistent with was that I kept an open mind and never committed myself to a yes or no,” he said. “I am grateful to all those who supported me, including members of the gay community, but they did that as everyone did, not knowing if I was a committed yes.”

Addabbo said he couldn’t base his decision on the possibility of facing a Democratic primary next year, even though his vote has made that much more likely. “My philosophy is to do my work to the best of my ability, and I put that body of work, both legislation and constituent service-wise, on the lien every other year, and it’s up to the people to judge me I hope not on one issue, but on a whole bunch of issues I put work into.”

He said he “can’t be hung up” on the prospect of facing a party primary challenge on the basis of one vote. “If there is a primary, I’ll put my record up against my opponent, and if there is a general, I’ll put my record up against that opponent.”

Addabbo did seek to debunk one theory that has been presented since the vote: that his vote, which came early in the roll call due to his last name, set off a chain reaction that led other Democrats to also reject the bill. “We knew going into the chamber that there were not enough votes, so the myth that I caused a chain reaction didn’t happen,” he said. “If you do the math, eight other Democrats were solid with their no votes. This issue really wasn’t as cultivated as much as it should have been, and we didn’t have enough votes going in.”

The other Queens Democrats voting against the bill were George Onorato (Astoria), Hiram Monseratte (East Elmhurst) and Shirley Huntley ( Jamaica), while borough Democrats Toby Ann Stavisky (Flushing) and Malcolm Smith (St. Albans) supported the measure. Frank Padavan (Bellerose) joined every one of his Republican colleagues in voting against the bill and not participating in the discussion leading up to the roll call.

Politics Unusual: Save and Spend, Serf; Candidates Speak at Un-Debate

By Anthe N. Syde

Well there’s still plenty of mail washing up “In the Serf”. Oddly enough all the pieces keep trying to pound the idea of how much money Serf Maltese is saving us in tax dollars.

Truth be told, we’re getting a little bored with these glossy reiterations, so we decided to send a little bit of information down the pipeline about another subject we thought you might find interesting...How Much Money Is Serf Costing Us? Aha! Thought that might catch your eye.

You know the Internet is an amazing place, and for as much nonsense as there is floating around in cyberspace, for the more discerning consumer, there is plenty of real information that is available to those who choose to spend their time looking for tasty little tidbits... SeeThroughNY.net is a delightful little web portal that allows visitors to search government payrolls, contracts, expenditures, and link to additional information and supporting material on other websites.

In other words you can visit this site to find out who, what, where and when your elected officials are spending your hard earned taxpayer dollars on.

For those of you who would rather rely on us for digging up all the news the candidates wish we didn’t find out about and wouldn’t print, here goes the low down on the “stayed too long senator”, Serf Maltese.

As a point of information, Queens has seven Senators. Five are Democrats and two are Republicans. During the time period covered by the data we found, the five Democrats were Shirley Huntley, George Onorato, John Sabini, Malcolm Smith, and Toby Stavisky. The two Republicans were Serf Maltese and Frank Padavan.

The data shows the tab to staff the offices of the two Republican senators as a hefty
$1,809,710 from October 06 - September 07. By the way, that's without the senator's salaries included. Maltese's office cost us a whopping $933,661.64. Comparatively, the total cost to run the offices of the five Queens Democrats also without their salaries included, was $1,532,075.06. Maltese and Padavan cost us over a quarter-of- a-million more than the five Democrats put together.

Delving into a little perspective, running those two Queens Republican Senate offices also cost more than it did to run five of the Queens Assembly offices, all occupied by Democrats, that cover parts of the Maltese Senate District. Added together, minus
their salaries, it cost us $1,425,523 to run the offices of Assemblymembers Pheffer, Hevesi, Markey, Nolan, and Seminerio. (Of course we didn’t figure the extra $500,000 Tony Seminerio allegedly picked up all on his own).

We were having so much fun that we just couldn’t stop without telling you that Maltese had 36 staff members during the time period covered by this data. Padavan had 27. That's a total of 63 employees who cost us in total, $1,625.555.93. Between them, the five Dem Senators had 11 more employees, but the tab was about half-a-million less. And those five Assemblymembers you might ask... well they cost us a total of $1,228,387 for the 58 employees they had between them.

The point of this you might be wondering...well let’s just say we think that when Sen. Maltese makes it such a big issue to point out how much money he’s supposedly saving us in tax dollars, it may be sort of relevant if he tells us where all those savings are going. From the looks of the figures above it’s easy for us to put our finger on exactly where all the savings went...to his offices.

Really now – when it comes to our money, who should we be calling reckless?

As for the Great Debate for the Senate, it looks like the Howard Beach Civic Forum set up a night of T-Ball for the prospective candidates, where everyone goes home a winner. The crowd was clearly there to state that Joe Addabbo is the “hometown boy of Howard Beach”, however we were a little disappointed to see that once again, Joe took the high road instead of using the issues to show what a “dawg” his opponent truly is.

From where we sit, a debate is supposed to serve up the positions of candidates by having them present their views and also to argue points with their opponents. We were disappointed to see that the pseudo debate hosted by the Civic Fourm did not offer any opportunity for the candidates to oppose each other verbally. We would have liked the chance to see both of these guys face off.

That having been said, perhaps groups sponsoring so-called debates in the future will allow the type of candidate interaction that really affords the audience a chance to see candidates faced with speaking “on-the-spot”.

We’d like to take this opportunity to tell the councilman, who “would be senator”, that it’s ok to point out your opponent’s short comings especially when they are rooted in undeniable fact. Come on Joe, it’s not fair that we have to be the ones to tell the people what a no-show, empty suit you’re running against.

For example, one of his responses at the debate had Serf bragging about his office having the most staff members of any office. We showed you the evidence of how much that staff costs us a few paragraphs ago, but what we didn’t show you was how much more that staff works for our community for all that extra money.

Guess what. We didn’t tell you about it because it doesn’t exist. In fact if we were looking for data to support what Serf’s staff actually does for all that money, we’d be, in the very least, extremely hard pressed.

We hope that no one in the debate audience fell for the story of how Serf’s office settled the dead bunker problem in Shellbank Basin because his version of what happened was, according to those in the know, a real “Fish Tale.”

The bottom line here is that we’re truly very disappointed in a 19-year veteran of the State Senate having resorted to so using so many underhanded tactics and of course the manipulated distortion of the truth to get a leg up in this election. From where we sit, anyone with this long in office should have enough of their own accomplishments to talk about, without having to dish the dirt on their opponent as the sole platform for campaigning.

Maybe the thread of the presidential campaign really rings true here in the 15th Senate District. Change is coming. Thank heavens.

Lawn Litter Enforcement Begins in August

RESIDENTS CAN FILE COMPLAINTS AGAINST BUSINESSES

By Conor Greene

Residents tired of having unwanted circulars, restaurant menus and other fliers dumped on their lawn can fight back starting next month, when the city begins enforcing a new law intended to reduce the amount of “lawn litter” left on private property.

The city Department of Sanitation will begin enforcing the new law on August 2, according to Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D -Little Neck), who co-authored the bill with Senator Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose). Fines will range from $250 for first time offenders to $1,000 for repeat offenders. The law was passed in January, but enforcement was put on hold until the Department of Sanitation finalized its procedures for assessing fines to violators.

Under the adopted rules, homeowners can place a sign stating: “Do Not Place Unsolicited Advertising Materials On This Property.” To report violators, residents can submit a signed complaint form (available online or by calling 311) and the unsolicited materials to the Department of Sanitation. Weprin called it a “great example of government responding directly to constituents’ concerns.” He was motivated to take action against this quality of life issue after “people around the city complained for years about receiving unsolicited advertisements on their property.”

Aside from the quality of life issues, the law was also motivated by safety, said Weprin. “Plastic bags become slippery when wet, elderly and disabled residents sometimes have difficulty bending down to pick up paper from the ground, and a pile of uncollected advertisements can be a signal to burglars that homeowners are away,” he said.

The final version of the enforcement rules were tweaked after civic organizations and elected officials complained that too much of the onus was placed on the resident. Under the proposed rules released earlier this year, residents would be required to have the form notarized before sending it back to the Sanitation Department’s enforcement unit.

That aspect of the law prompted Weprin and Padavan to write a joint letter to the Sanitation Department arguing, “It may be difficult for one reason or another for people to get to a notary.” The representatives expressed concerned that the requirement of a notarized complaint… may well discourage citizens [from submitting] complaints.”

While the notary requirement was considered to prevent false complaints against businesses and to add credence to resident’s complaints, it was deleted from the final requirements. Instead, residents submitting complaints “must certify that the information is truthful and accurate, and acknowledge that false statements in the complaint form are punishable” under state law. If necessary, they must also be available to testify before the Environmental Control Board.

In their letter to Sanitation, Weprin and Padavan noted that there appears to be widespread support for the initiative, which they compared to the “Do Not Call” registry. “From our personal observations, to complaints from community boards, civic organizations and our neighbors, unwanted literature, advertisements and fliers left on private property is not only a blight throughout Queens but a safety issue as well.”