Community Board 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece said he has officially filed with the city’s Board of Elections to throw his hat into the upcoming race for the newly created 25th Assembly District.
Iannece, an attorney who previously ran for the City Council in 2001 and 2009, plans to campaign on his 25 years of service as a northeast Queens activist, civic leader and community board chairman.
“I look forward going door-to-door and meeting people,” he said. “It’s a different district from the one I ran in before. I want to get out and talk to people about the issues.”
The new district encompasses a sliver of Douglaston near the neighborhood’s shopping center, most of Bayside Hills, the southern portion of Auburndale, Fresh Meadows and the southern section of Flushing.
Iannece said he jumped into the race after being encouraged by local civic leaders. The Queens County Democratic Party is expected to pick its official candidate within a few weeks.
Assemblyman Rory Lancman, D-Fresh Meadows, is , facing off against , D-Flushing, Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, D-Middle Village, and , R-Whitestone, in the Sixth District race, rather than running for the 25th Assembly seat.
Iannece, a Democrat, said he has not heard of any other candidates for the seat.
He believes top issues in this fall’s campaign will include who faced higher valuations this year, education, raising the and the , a legislative proposal that would grant permanent residency to certain illegal aliens who complete two years in the military or at a four-year educational institution of higher learning.
“I’m excited about the possibility of making a bigger impact,” Iannece said of running for the Assembly, rather than the City Council. “I’m used to wearing many hats on local issues and looking forward to working hand-in-hand with local Council members. I’d like for us to be a team.”
As a local issue, Iannece listed preserving Fresh Meadows’s three-century-old Brinckerhoff Cemetery, which is supposed to go before the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission on May 15.
Iannece has been a member of CB 11 for more than 15 years. He was first elected as its chairman in 2002 and has led the board nine years out of the past 11 years.
Prior to his work on CB 11, he served as the president of the Bayside Hills Civic Association for a decade. He is currently a member of the Queens Civic Congress.
“These have been invaluable experiences that distinguish me from other people who might enter this race,” he said. “I think challengers would have to talk about what they’ve done in the community and whether they are political insiders or activists.”
