Queens Tribune

When the dust settled from a busy Election Day, change had come to Queens - three Republicans won the opportunity to represent the borough in City Hall.

A young man from Ozone Park who won a special election earlier this year kept his post; a Chinese immigrant businessman from Flushing won victory in a Democratic district; and a Pagan ex-cop and attorney from Whitestone who endured probing questions about his faith stood tall as the new Republican triumvirate of Queens.

Eric Ulrich, Peter Koo and Dan Halloran will be three out of the five representatives of the GOP in the City Council; the other two are from Staten Island. During his victory speech at his Bell Boulevard headquarters, Halloran asked rhetorically, "And who do you think the next Council Minority Leader will be?" leading to chants of "Dan's our man!"

Prior to the 2001 election, Queens was home to three GOP Council members, but that changed with term limits, dropping to just two for the last eight years. The three seats held this Tuesday by the GOP were all created by vacancies. When Councilman Joe Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) won a Senate seat last year he vacated his post and Ulrich won a special election in what has historically been a split district.

The other seats were given up by Council members who opposed the extension of term limits and ran for higher office. In Flushing, John Liu (D-Flushing), who will be the next City Comptroller, had been the latest in a long line of Democrats for the district - where registered Democrats outweigh Republicans by a margin of 6 to 1.

Tony Avella (D-Bayside) challenged Mayor Mike Bloomberg in a primary in September, suffering a massive loss. His seat, which was held by Republican Mike Abel for a decade earlier, now sits in Halloran's hands.

Halloran said Tuesday night that his faith - he is the first known Pagan to be elected to public office in New York - played too strong a role in the discussion of the campaign.

"I ran for an office because I had ideas, and I feel like those ideas got hijacked by my religion," he said. "Instead of being able to talk about the overcrowding in our schools, the problems that we had with overdevelopment, the public safety issues that were being created, we spent so much time talking about faith that the message had been lost."

Throughout the borough, many districts fell as expected. Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Little Neck) easily won the seat vacated by his brother David, who failed in his own bid for Comptroller. Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria) saw 23 percent of the vote go to Green Party candidate Lynn Serpe and fellow incumbents Tom White (D-Jamaica) , Liz Crowley (D-Middle Village) and James Sanders (D-Laurelton) all went on to victory.

Danny Dromm, who had defeated incumbent Helen Sears (D-Jackson Heights) in the September primary, and Jimmy Van Bramer, who landed the Dem spot in the seat vacated by Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside), were both elected as the first gay representatives from Queens. Karen Koslowitz, who was term limited out of office in 2001, won back the seat vacated by Melinda Katz (D-Forest Hills), who had a failed campaign for Comptroller.

Three seats had no opposition, leaving Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans), Jim Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) and Julissa Ferreras (D-Corona) able to walk back into City Hall.

Reach Editor Brian M. Rafferty at brafferty@queenstribune.com or call (718) 357-7400, Ext. 122.