Letters

Register To Vote
To The Editor (And to all the Greeks of the five boroughs):

It’s time for Greeks to stop complaining about marginal political recognition; because it’s time for you to register to vote.

If you drive a car, that’s how most of you get listed for jury duty, but not for registration to vote.

The reason Gianaris got elected is the Greeks registered to vote increased from 12 percent to 25 percent, 200,000 or 45 percent of Astoria’s population.

In 1997 I formed a Greek coalition and I was successful in the establishment of the first supplemental Greek voter registration form in the United States; plus a pamphlet in Greek why vote.

To register the 75 percent of Greek non-voters of Astoria and 80 percent out of Astoria, obtain the Greek supplemental voter registration form, the standard voter registration form and the pamphlet "Why Vote" in Greek, and for information, contact me at (718) 672-9848 (telephone and fax).

The 1996 Demographic statistics of Greeks in New York State, updated from 1,105,000 in New York state, equaling 920,000 in the five boroughs, to 2001, 1,305,000 in New York state, explained below:

Queens has 325,000 Greeks

Brooklyn has 280,000 Greeks

Bronx has 125,000 Greeks

New York City has 100,000 Greeks

Staten Island has 90,000 Greeks

This totals 920,000 Greeks

Upstate 85,000 Greeks

Long Island 300,000 Greeks

Complete State Wide Total of Greeks 1,305,0000

Sincerely,

Athan J. Christodoulou

Chairman, U.S. 2000 Census

Hellenic Steering Committee of NY, State

Vice President of The Hellenic American

Cultural Academy of Long Island

Ciafone Addresses Vallone Jr.

To The Editor:

In response to John Toscano’s article in the Western Queens Gazette on August 15, 2001, I need to address what I feel is an unfair characterization and summarization by my opponent, Peter Vallone, Jr., of the advertisement featured in the June 27, 2001 edition of the Gazette.

I take exception to words used in the article such as "fabricated," "bogus," "invented" and "deceived." As I have explained and as I will again explain, everything written in the ad was with reason and understanding. Although we made a mistake in stating "endorsed," rather than "supported," we honed up to it and apologized. This was in no way or form intentionally done.

Our campaign mistakenly ran an advertisement once in the Western Queens Gazette on June 27, 2001 in which we noted receiving several endorsements by candidates running for other offices. The ad never stated newspapers endorsed us. The ad contained newspaper quotes attributed to John Ciafone for the work he has done while on the school board.

I reviewed the ad with my staff and discovered that we made a mistake in using the word "endorsement" when we should have used the word "supported" instead. That ad was never run again. We did not run a correction to that ad because we intended that they would eventually endorse our campaign. One candidate has already endorsed us, namely, City Councilman and Queens Borough President Candidate Sheldon Leffler.

While I am sorry that this error happened, it was caused for two reasons. It was written in long hand by my campaign assistant and it was not proofread. This was a careless mistake. It is important to know that the ad was not made blindly, it was based upon the communications by the various candidates as well as their staffers. These candidates at certain points and times did indicate their interest and desire in endorsing our campaign and vice-versa. We collected signatures and campaigned with some of these candidates. Some of these candidates came to our Aldos Democratic Club and expressed interest in supporting our campaign. While two of these candidates have already endorsed us, some want more time and others may not, depending on the changing political climate and the political pressure put on them by other forces.

An innocent error should not be the focus and attention of this campaign. The focus of this campaign should be on the issues which affect the community as a whole. The other important concern is who is best able to serve this community and who has the track record to do it. I have been born, raised and schooled in this community and have never moved out. I believe that this community is great, but we have problems that need to be addressed and debated.

I am the only candidate that has been elected to serve this community. I am the only elected official in this city and state with a perfect attendance record. I have been elected to Community School Board 30 twice, and served in the capacities of treasurer, vice president and president. I am a Judicial Delegate to the 11th Judicial District. All of my elected positions are without pay and I have proven to be a hardworking and dedicated public servant who is destined to be an outstanding City Councilman representing my hometown community.

John Ciafone

Astoria