Sign up now to subscribe!
A Governor from the City? Help from Unlikely Quarters The Bloomberg Factor “Outer Borough” Presidents Bristle at Stringer’s Reforms Agendas For AG Contest for State Committee Dems to Decide Contest for State Committee Getting Its Foot in the Political Door Grassroots in the Concrete City
Living Wage Advocates Think Big Box Civil Court Action
Pundit Poll: Hail to the Chief Executive Officer?
The Money Trail: AG Candidates Firm Up Law Support In the Chair: Peter Vallone, Jr. In the Trenches: Josh Bocian Review: Ripe for an Analysis Brooke Masters sketches out the likely Democratic nominee French Fare with Carolyn Maloney Photo Page Defining the Line Between Staffers and Campaign Workers Letters to the Editor The View from Albany: The Winds of Change in Spitzer’s and Silver’s Sails by Alan Chartock Government Must Take a Role in Community Planning by City Council Member Dan Garodnick
The Speaker’s Son Speaks for Himself
Peter F. Vallone, Jr. (D-Queens) entered his district office carrying a canvas bag with sneakers in it and had an iced coffee in his other hand. He had just dropped one of his daughters off at camp and was hoping to hit the gym later on. He plays four instruments, loads of sports, works 12 hour days regularly, and manages to devote all of his remaining time to his two daughters and the rest of his family. During the blackout, standard 12 hour days were stretched to 15.
Michael Distefano owns the local Cold Stone Creamery, which was forced to close due to last month’s blackout. For him, Vallone’s fighting spirit is clear. Distefano’s struggle is not over, but he credits Vallone for helping him personally, and for “going to bat against Con Ed.”
Vallone says he has had a “sense of justice” since he was a kid.
Throughout his childhood and adolescence, he wanted to be a police officer, but by the time he was old enough to walk a beat, he was studying political science and then law, both at Fordham University.
This led to six years as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. It was a job Vallone felt combined his interests in police work and law. And he would likely have stayed were it not for a baby on the way, juxtaposed against the less than $50,000 he was making at the time.
For the next ten years, he worked with his father and namesake, the former Council Speaker who ran for both governor and mayor, in their private law practice, Vallone & Vallone, located next to his current office in Astoria.
His father’s legacy and his gratitude to him is obvious, and he does not think he will be “able to fill” his shoes. Vallone, Jr. watched him work for 27 years and says it showed him that “one person could make a difference and could really make lives better [for] the people around him.”
Now in his second term, Vallone, Jr. has continued to chair the Public Safety Committee, which oversees all matters related to the police, the courts, the prosecutors, civilian complaints, juvenile justice, emergency management and organized crime.
Given his professional and educational backgrounds, it was a logical choice for Vallone, who says he is “determined to get prosecutors more money.” Having sat at the prosecutor’s and defense tables, he saw it as “the position that was made for” him and he actively sought it out.
After stiffening the penalties for graffiti, this became perhaps his signature issue, though he says this was inadvertent, and is just one of many things he is proud to have worked on as chair.
He is also proud of public safety initiatives that have resulted in cameras being placed in public schools, illegal gun legislation passed this summer, a commitment to making nightlife safer and 1,200 new cops being included in the new budget under his watch.
Vallone, who is not known for pulling punches, recently came to the forefront of city news during the outcry over Con Edison’s handling of the blackout that washed over Queens, by criticizing Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) for thanking Kevin M. Burke, head of the energy giant.
“The mayor doesn’t seem to appreciate the severity of what’s gone on here,” Vallone said. He maintains that the people at Con Ed who, in his view, mishandled the crisis “should go to jail.”
Vallone’s top priority is and will continue to be “public safety … and making it the city and the mayor’s number one focus.”
Many assume Vallone will run for Queens district attorney in 2009, if term limits are not repealed and he is forced from office.
He acknowledges that “Queens D.A. is one of those [positions] I think I’ll be very good at.”
Vallone’s opposes term limits because he thinks they force Council members to think about their next job and to begin raising money as soon as they start working in their new positions.
For example, he denies that his father was forced out by term limits, and says he was going to run for mayor regardless of the approaching end of his tenure in the Council.
Term limits should be extended for an additional term, he argued.
Speaking about his brother, Paul Vallone described the Council member as bringing “that litigator mentality” to public life, constantly offering “proof” to constituents, other legislators, and reporters.
“I think Pete’s different in that he’s passionate in his convictions and he’s not too concerned about the politically correct answer … [and] he’s not a media hound,” he doesn’t “try the perfect quotes over and over, or over a single issue … [he] sees things through and then moves on to the next thing.”