By Dustin Brown
A lot of things have changed in New York City since City Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Astoria) first stepped into office in January 1974.
The speaker title he has held for 12 years did not even exist until 1989, when a court decision revamped city government by putting legislators on an equal footing with the mayor.
New York is also now considered the safest large city in the country and has a campaign finance program lauded as a model for the nation.
Vallone’s handprint is prominent on every one of those changes. In addition to spearheading the court battle that empowered the City Council, he instituted the Safe Streets, Safe City program that put more cops on the streets and championed the campaign finance legislation.
Barred by term limits from running for re-election, Vallone left office at the start of the new year with his eyes focused on the work left to be done and with some pride over the revolutionary measures he shaped over the course of a long career.
“I became the first speaker in the history of the City Council,” Vallone said. “That’s why I’m the best speaker in the history of the City Council, the worst speaker and the only speaker.”
But some things do not change. Before Vallone won his City Council seat in 1973 he was fighting a plan to double the coal-burning capacity of two Long Island City power plants — a battle he won when Mayor John Lindsay agreed to replace coal with low-sulfur oil.
Thirty years later, the same issue launched his son Peter Vallone Jr. into the spotlight as legal council for CHOKE, a community environmental group that is battling state plans to build additional power plants in Astoria.
“They want to put all the new power plants in Astoria and Long Island City, which is ridiculous,” Vallone said. “You can’t attack one community that way. It has to be dispersed throughout the city.”
Like his father, Vallone Jr. moved from local environmental activism to City Council and filled the seat his father was just forced to vacate.
“The best policy is to simply tell the truth and to do the right thing,” Vallone said. “He’ll be somebody in there who’ll be fighting to keep that going.”
The dawn of his son’s career in political office coincided with the end of his own. Vallone failed in two bids to attain higher elected office, first in a 1998 gubernatorial campaign against Gov. George Pataki, then again this year in his run for mayor.
“I really believe more important than winning or losing elections is how you play the game,” Vallone said. “I would not forgive myself if I didn’t run. But I have no regrets. I do not feel badly about losing.”
Vallone plans to remain active in political life, however, championing political causes using $500,000 collected by the Vallone Political Action Committee — along with the credibility that comes from no longer holding an elected office.
He plans to continue campaigning against the term limits law that forced him out of office now that he no longer has to fend off critics who had dismissed his opposition as an attempt to hang onto his job.
“Now I think I can be much more effective in that battle because no one can say I’m trying to stay in office,” Vallone said. “I think it’s a terrible thing for the city to have everyone leaving office at the same time. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
He will also fight to eliminate the Board of Education and reinstate the city commuter tax, which he described as a “use fee” for facilities, while practicing law again at the Astoria firm of Vallone and Vallone founded by his father.
His voice may also find its way into government by proxy, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg having asked him for help along the way.
“I just do it because I love the city, as I know he does,” Vallone said. “I think partisan politics is something of the past now.”
Further, Vallone said he is fielding offers from three or four universities to teach government courses.
“I’d like to get graduate students interested in going into government,” he said. “I think government is the noblest of all services.”
Having watched the city endure the nation’s worst-ever terrorist attack in the last months of his tenure as the council leader, he still maintains his optimism that New York will come out on top under new leadership.
“In spite of the enormity of the financial problems, if the only thing you have to worry about is money, you’re way ahead of the game,” Vallone said. “I don’t think they’ll ever break the spirit of the city.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
