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QUEENS WEEKLY, DEC. 30, 2018
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Queens mourns loss of
political fi gures in 2018
BY BILL PARRY
The political class in
Queens lost a prominent figure,
a beloved former lawmaker
and a First Lady who
traced her roots to Flushing
in 2018.
State Sen. Jose Peralta
died Nov. 21 at the age of
47 from an illness and was
remembered fondly for his
advocacy for the underrepresented,
including undocumented
immigrants and the
LGBT community, by fellow
Queens elected officials.
“Jose was a fighter for
those who did not have the
voice,” City Councilman
Daniel Dromm said. “He was
a fighter for our immigrant
community, he was the main
sponsor of the DREAM Act,
he was a fighter for LGBT
rights when nobody else
would be there for us. He voted
for marriage equality. He
always spoke up for the little
person, he always spoke up
for the voiceless.”
Borough President Melinda
Katz commented on
the fact that although Peralta
fell out of favor with much
of community by defecting
to the Independent Democratic
Conference in 2017,
paying proper respect to the
life-long public servant now
a top priority.
“There’s a lot of politics,
but at the end of the day our
families and friendships
transcend that,” Katz said.
The IDC was a group
of eight state senators
who broke away from the
mainstream Democratic
Party to caucus among
themselves and negotiated
with Republicans to pass
progressive legislation.
Intensely opposed by
Democrats across the state,
the majority of former IDC
members, who had disbanded
in April, were voted out
of office in the September
Democratic primary.
Peralta was among
them, having lost his seat to
Jessica Ramos.
Longtime state Sen.
Frank Padavan died of a
heart attack in October at
the age of 83.
Jose Peralta died of a heart attack early Thursday morning.
A Republican, Padavan
went to Albany in 1972
as the state senator from
the 11th District, a seat he
would hold for 38 years representing
a wide swath of
northeast Queens.
“I was friends with
Frank for 38 years from his
very first campaign. I was
the state director of the Conservative
Party at the time
and he was an unknown
quantity but we liked him
from the start,” Serphin
Maltese said. “He was a
towering figure in the state
Senate. For 38 years he was
an independent voice in the
Senate with a great amount
of credibility. That’s why he
kept getting re-elected in a
district where Democrats
outnumbered Republicans
three to one.”
Padavan fought hard
for mental health patient
rights, education, fairness
in the criminal justice
system and he was a fierce
opponent of gambling.
“He was anti-gambling
and anti-lottery, that was
one of his hallmarks,”
Maltese said. “He thought
the government was victimizing
the middle class
and poor people by picking
their pockets.”
Padavan spent more
than half of his life representing
the people of
Queens before losing to
state Sen. Tony Avella (DBayside)
in the November
2010 general election.
In the late 1970s, homeowners
in northeast Queens
Photo by Mark Hallum
resisted group homes for
adults with developmental
disabilities in their neighborhoods,
but Padavan saw the
benefits as a human right.
In 1978, New York’s Padavan
Law passed, preventing
communities from excluding
group homes unless the
area is already saturated
or a better site in the same
community could be found.
Padavan was predeceased
by his wife Johanne
and he is survived by two
adult children.
Flushing-born Former
First Lady Barbara Bush
died in April following a
battle with an unspecified
illness. She was 92.
Born on June 8, 1925, at
Booth Memorial Hospital
in Flushing, Barbara Pierce
became the first lady during
the 1989-1993 Presidency of
George H.W. Bush and was
the mother of the 43rd president,
George W. Bush, who
occupied the office from
2001 to 2009.
She met her future husband
at a school dance at
Ashley Hall in Charleston,
S.C., in 1945. After World
War II and a stint at Smith
College, she married at 19
and had six children, including
a daughter named
Robin, who died of leukemia
at 3 years old in 1953.
Bush had the distinction
of being the second woman
to be the wife and mother of
U.S. presidents, the first being
Abigail Adams. She also
was a descendant of President
Franklin Pierce.
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