JACK DELANEY
jdelaney@queensledger.com
When you ask Vickie Paladino what she’s most proud of from her second term in the City Council, the answer comes quickly: “I was able to really be heard.”
The answer is apt. Paladino, the minority whip and a member of the right-leaning Common Sense Caucus who was elected in 2021 and again in 2023 to represent north- east Queens, has established a reputation as a conservative firebrand amid the legislative body’s sea of blue.
Now Paladino is running for a four-year term in District 19 against Democrat Ben Chou, in one of only a small set of competitive council races this November.
She won’t struggle with name recognition. Paladino’s opponents label her social media presence as divisive. But the Whitestone native’s supporters say she’s helping to voice their concerns, and at a roundtable with the Ledger she emphasized her eagerness to find common ground.
“I will work with anybody and everybody,” said Paladino. “Most definitely — it’s for the betterment of the city. That takes top priority for me always, what’s best for the people and what’s best for the city.”
Paladino first rose to prominence in 2017 after her husband filmed her upbraiding then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. Then, in 2019, she went viral again for confronting an alleged squatter in Whitestone, trading F-bombs as he blew smoke in her face.
Paladino hasn’t pulled her punches since becoming a lawmaker. In a video from last year that has racked up nearly nine million views, she criticized a housing advocate during a hearing on the City of Yes rezoning plan by intimating hat he was a transplant (“Where are you from?”)
More recently, Paladino sparked backlash in June for suggesting that mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani should be deported. She also faced threats of legal action this summer after tweeting that the progressive politics of the girlfriend of slain Brooklyn activist Ryan Carson, who was fatally stabbed in 2023, were partially to blame for his death.
“I’ve never shied away from social media,” explained Paladino, who told City & State in January that her posts are a collaborative effort between herself and her son, Thomas Paladino Jr. “It was always a very big part of who I am.”
Yet the Queens rep’s online notoriety can sometimes overshadow her obvious love for her neighbor- hood, and her willingness to drill down on local issues.
“I set out with a very robust plan in 2021. I didn’t go into this blind, and I knew certain things needed to be fixed,” said Paladino. “In College Point, a $250 million infrastructure project was left to go barren, and I brought that back to life working with DDC, DEP, and DOT. I hang my hat on that.”
Paladino introduced six bills this session and sponsored 141, including legislation to increase the fine for repeated littering violations and provide more resources to fire- fighters.
Paladino’s current priority is public safety. “This summer was a rough go,” she said. “We had car jackings — unheard of. Home invasions, unheard of. We’ve had home theft. Squatters, I took care of that real quick. It’s not gone, but I’m all over that.”
Paladino also cited the tens of millions in funding she’s secured for schools in her district, and her campaign to deport undocumented migrants.
But the Republican candidate’s most consistent white whale has been the city’s push to build more housing. Though the City of Yes plan passed in 2024, she has joined other city council members in op- posing this year’s ballot propositions 2 through 4, which would fast-track some affordable housing projects by bypassing the council.
“What makes New York unique? You could go from the top of the Bronx, to downtown Man- hattan, to northeast Queens — you could be anywhere and see different things,” said Paladino. “It’s wonderful, and they want to take that away. What gives you the right to do that?”
Few city council members are likely to leap at the chance to side- line their own institution. Yet the stakes for Paladino are higher, she noted, because her district is one of the “Dirty Dozen,” a list of the twelve areas with the lowest permitting rate for affordable housing. If the ballot propositions pass, these neighborhoods would be targeted for a streamlined land use review process to induce more development — by hook or by crook.
Paladino has been a staunch opponent of large-scale development, which she characterizes as “impractical” and a blow to NYC in the long term. What version of the city would she like to see instead, then, thirty years from now?
“I want it to go back to being the cultural and economic capital of the world,” said Paladino. “I want people back in offices. I want to see stores hustling and bustling, I want to see Broadway alive. I want to see people punished for crimes. I want quality of life back. All you need is good leadership, and there’s not a single problem that cannot be solved.”
