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The 30th district, comprised of Ridgewood, Glendale, and Middle Village, is a conservative part of Queens, represented in the State Senate by Republican Serphin Maltese, who has sponsored a state Defense of Marriage Act, fortunately forestalled in Albany. His Assembly partner on that effort is Democrat Anthony Seminario, who represents a portion of the 30th.
According to GothamGazette.com, the district is 53 percent white, 32 percent Latino, seven percent Asian, and only two percent black. Just over half of the voters are registered Democrats, with only a quarter identifying as Republicans, yet the GOP has held the Council seat for the past 16 years.
At a candidate forum in Glendale in early April, strong opposition was voiced in the crowd and among some of the candidates to bilingual education and to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, which shortly afterward went down to defeat in Albany. Only Ober said anything positive about the congestion plan, though he emphasized some reservations. Several mentions of the “Brooklyn border” during the evening indicated community anxiety about the proximity of Bushwick and East New York, two neighborhoods with predominately people of color populations.
In a race that includes three Republicans and two Democrats and will be decided in a nonpartisan vote, the divides among the candidates have played out as though two primaries were simultaneously being contested. Ognibene has been harshly critical of the GOP machine in Queens for supporting Anthony Como, a Maltese aide who just resigned his post as a Queens County elections commissioner.
Ober meanwhile has taken on the county Democratic establishment for endorsing Crowley, who also got the party’s nod in 2001 when, at age 23, she garnered just 40 percent of the vote against Dennis Gallagher, the Republican. Gallagher’s resignation after pleading guilty to two sexual abuse misdemeanor charges set the stage for the special election. Ober charges he was never given consideration by the Democratic organization.

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