The Forest Park Civic Association’s inaugural meeting started with politics last week on Wednesday, May 2.
The organization is trying to be an umbrella group for civics around Forest Park.
It began to find its feet, searched for a core group of supporters and heard from all the candidates running for the area’s congressional seat.
“This meeting is more or less to get to know each other, introduce ourselves to each other,” said the 26-year-old leader of the group, Paul Gagliardotto.
He’s looking for seven board members to help run the organization.
In the community room at The Shops at Atlas Park in Glendale, there were about 20 attendees. About half of them were or represented politicians in the area.
The three democrats running in the June 26 primary for the 6th Congressional District spoke and congratulated the civic on its first meeting. Councilman Dan Halloran, the sole challenger so far on the Republican side also spoke, getting
ready for the November general election.
Democratic Assemblyman Rory Lancman kicked it off, commending the group.
“This is how we get together to protect and promote our quality of life,” Lancman said. “Let me start by congratulating you.”
Lancman then introduced himself to the room and gave a short campaign speech that repeatedly hit the theme of fighting for working people that he’s carried through his campaign.
“For ordinary people, the deck is stacked against us,” he said.
Lancman said the idea of “leveling the playing field” motivated his time in the state assembly and his current run for congress.
Next up was Assemblywoman Grace Meng, who represents Flushing.
“I want to congratulate you, especially being so young,” Meng told Gagliardotto. “It’s an inspiration. I think it’s really important to get our younger citizens in the community involved.”
Currently an assemblywoman for Flushing, Meng also quickly hit on some campaign points.
She said her goal in the assembly has been partially to be a bridge between local communities, governmental agencies and new immigrant communities.
She noted she’s had 10 bills signed into law, many of them focusing on quality of life.
In congress, she said she would want to fight for routing more resources locally to Queens. She hit on notes like school overcrowding, protecting Medicare and better support for mass transit.
“Something that really upsets me is the lack of quality of the mass transportation system,” she said. “We don’t get back what we deserve from the federal government in terms of our infrastructure.”
Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley was the last Democratic challenger to speak.
Crowley focused on her public safety chops, noting how she has repeatedly fought to safe firehouses that are threatened almost every year by the city’s budget.
She said public safety is a fight she would continue in congress.
“We’re still the number one target for terrorists. We have to make sure on the federal level we’re getting the resources we need,” she said.
Crowley, out of the two other Democrats and Halloran, has been the least vocal about Israel and Iran, and the first questions she fielded from the crowd were about Iran and if she would support military action there.
“Before we go into war, we have to exhaust all resources available,” she said.
Stricter sanctions should be implemented and could be enough to stop nuclear research, she continued.
After the candidates spoke, Gagliardotto asked attendees to keep an eye on the group’s Facebook page for the next meeting date.
The Democratic Primary for the 6th Congressional District is June 26. The Forest Park Civic Association’s next meeting will be on a yet-to-bedetermined
day in June.
More information is available by emailing fpcaqueens@gmail.com.
By Jeremiah Dobruck
j.dobruck@theforumnewsgroup.com
