2013 Voter Guide

Candidates for 19th City Council District

Dennis Saffran
Republican, Conservative, Reform

Party Enrolled In: Republican

Current Occupation: Attorney

Previous Occupation(s): Director, Center for the Community Interest, a public interest group that supported Rudy Giuliani's anti-crime and quality-of-life reforms

Education: NYU Law School JD; Harvard Univ BA; Forest Hills HS

Organizational Affiliations: Vice Pres. Douglaston Civic Ass'n

Prior Public Experience: See above

1. What is the most important issue in Council District 19 you would address if elected?

The most important issue in District 19 is preserving and enhancing our special quality of life in Northeast Queens. This includes: Maintaining Educational Quality. I will work to maintain high standards and adequate funding in School Districts 25 and 26, and to defend the city's specialized high schools against an NAACP legal complaint that would water down merit selection. Restricting overdevelopment. I support downzoning and will fight large commercial and residential projects that would drain our resources and change the character of our communities. Keeping the streets safe. We must continue the policies of Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly that have kept our neighborhoods safe and turned our city around.

 

2. What other important issues would you address if elected?

I strongly oppose the City Council bill to allow noncitizens to vote. I support immigration but believe it is American citizenship that binds us together as a nation of immigrants and that this bill is an attack on the idea of citizenship. I also strongly support "Stop & Frisk." Of course these stops must be respectful and civil. But the bottom line is they get guns off the streets and save lives - typically the lives of poor and minority children.

 

3. What makes you the best candidate for this office?

I am the best candidate for this job because of my leadership in the fight for the neighborhood quality-of-life and anti-crime reforms that made New York a better place, and my devotion to restoring honesty in government. As a civic leader I worked to uphold Megan's Law and to get guns out of schools, porn shops out of neighborhoods and the mentally ill of the sidewalks and into treatment. And now, when scandal has tarred both parties, I want to restore the bipartisan tradition of integrity set by two of my political mentors and heroes, Sen. Frank Padavan and Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn, and to work as hard as they did for our communities.

 

Reprinted as supplied by the candidate. Participating in the Campaign Finance Program.

 

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Party Key
  • C = Conservative
  • D = Democratic
  • I = Independence
  • REF = Reform
  • R = Republican