Gentile coasts to third term in Council

Incumbent Democratic City Councilmember Vincent Gentile easily won a third and final term on Election Day, turning back a challenge by Republican John Quaglione.

Unofficial results have Gentile scoring 62.7 percent of the vote, with 12,638 ballots cast in his favor. Quaglione – deputy chief of staff to State Senator Marty Golden — received 35.6 percent (7,162 votes) and the Green Party candidate, Patrick Dwyer, got 1.7 percent (342 votes). He is now poised to become the most senior member of the City Council in January, 2014, as many of his colleagues were term-limited out of office.

“Can you say landslide?” an ebullient Gentile asked supporters gathered at the Stars & Stripes Democratic Club, 15^th Avenue and 74^th Street. “The people have spoken and my contract has been renewed.

“This campaign was about the future and the possibilities based on my now official new position as the most senior member of the City Council, based on the new leadership in the city, with a new mayor, Bill De Blasio, based upon what we have already accomplished,” Gentile went on. “We only talked about the future in positive terms. We ran with the most solid record and tonight the voters rewarded us.”

Among the planks in his platform were the restoration of ferry service at the Brooklyn Army Terminal while the R train tunnel is under repair; scoring the city’s first EcoDock for Bay Ridge’s 69^th Street Pier; getting legislation passed to prevent the city from charging for metered parking on Sundays; twice-a-day trash can pickups on local shopping strips; security cameras that will be installed on commercial thoroughfares in Bay Ridge; a new district-wide graffiti removal program; getting funding to upgrade NYPD officers’ bulletproof vests; and two Greenmarkets, one in Bay Ridge and one in Bensonhurst.

Gentile said that, moving forward, he expected his last term in the Council to be “filled with great accomplishments as I use my senor status to benefit the people in the district.”

Quaglione, gathered with supporters at the Salty Dog, Third Avenue and Bay Ridge Parkway, said he was “very proud of the race I ran, based on the issues. I think folks responded to a lot of the issues I raised and I do believe there is room for improvement.”

His taste of candidacy has whetted Quaglione’s appetite for future races. “I definitely will be running again,” he told this paper. “These were the hardest seven months of my life but I got a high from it. I do feel there were rewards.”

Coming forward to advocate on his community’s behalf was a natural progression for him, Quaglione added. “It’s good for young people to start getting involved in the process,” he said. “We live here, we’re the people with kids in school, we’re the next generation of homeowners, store owners and taxpayers. We should at least attempt to do something to make improvements instead of standing on the sidelines and saying this is wrong and that is wrong.”