Graziano Focuses on Fighting Overdevelopment, Improving Education in Council Bid

Urban planning consultant Paul Graziano said he decided to jump into the race for Councilman Dan Halloran’s seat to continue a battle against overdevelopment that he has been fighting for years as a community activist.

Graziano will face off against Flushing attorney Paul Vallone, former Halloran chief of staff Chrissy Voskerichian, former state Assemblyman John Duane and Austin Shafran, formerly of Empire State Development, in September’s Democratic primary.

The North Flushing resident said the three top issues in his campaign are fighting overdevelopment, preserving the quality of life in northeast Queens and education.

“When I first ran for City Council in 2001, a lot of my ideas had been put out there but not achieved,” Graziano said. “You can come up with all kinds of ideas, but if there’s no follow through, you’re just running on ideas. This time, I’m running based on a record of rezoning all of northeast Queens and placing Broadway-Flushing on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Graziano said overdevelopment in northeast Queens during Halloran’s tenure also prompted him to enter the City Council race.

“I thought he was supposed to defend the wishes of the community, but he has ignored them by giving out zoning changes to developers after the area had been downzoned to stop developers,” he said. “The 19th Council District needs someone who is going to pay attention to what the constituents want.”

He said improving education in the district and ensuring that local schools remain among the best in the city is a top priority.

“Northeast Queens has consistently rated among the best schools in the city, but now it is a district in need,” he said. “We have teachers leaving the schools in droves and the quality of education is declining. Parents tell me that art, music, gym, after school programs and tutoring have all been removed. This is an outrage. The Department of Education is treating these things as if they are a luxury, while they should be the right of every student to have.”

Graziano said quality of life issues are also of great significance to residents in northeast Queens.

“We pay the second highest tax rate in the city and yet we’re getting bad pavement jobs and trees being butchered because they are not being tended to by the Parks Department,” he said. “The district does not get its fair share of resources.”

Graziano said other local issues of importance include a lack of public parkland, the need to keep senior centers open and landmark designation.

“People are fooled by the fact that this is a suburban neighborhood,” he said. “We actually do not have much public parkland. We also have to maintain the ones we have.”

Graziano said he would use state Sen. Tony Avella, who formerly held the seat and recently endorsed the City Council hopeful, as a model for constituent services.

“My goal is to have the best constituent services we could have and I’d use Tony as a model for that because he was responsive to the needs of the community,” he said.

Graziano said he has refused to take campaign donations from real estate developers and lobbyists and has made going door-to-door the focus of his bid.

“I was born and bred here,” he said. “This is a great place to live and it’s one where I want to be involved in the decision making process for no reward other than knowing that my neighborhood isn’t going to fall apart. I want to be able to influence events not just as a consultant or activist, but as an elected official.”