Queens mourns loss of political fi gures
Borough stunned by passing of Jose Peralta, Frank Padavan and former First Lady
The political class in
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
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 lifelong
public servant now a
“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
Queens was shocked at the sudden death of Jose Peralta on Thanksgiving. Photo by Mark Hallum
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.
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 (D-Bayside) in
the November 2010 general
election.
In the late 1970s, homeowners
in northeast Queens
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
Frank Padavan died in October.
He was 83. Photo by Michael Shain
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,
occupied the office from 2001
to 2009.
She met her future husband
Ashley Hall in Charleston,
S.C., in 1945. After World War
II and a stint at Smith College,
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
was a descendant of President
Franklin Pierce.
Reach reporter Bill Parry
by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.
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Queens lost a prominent figure,
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