Councilman Leroy Comrie. (Photo: Facebook)

Councilman Leroy Comrie, once considered a front-runner in the Queens borough presidents race, is "looking at every option," he told Politicker this morning when asked if he's planning to drop his bid.

"I'm not prepared to put that out publicly yet, I'm still working on it," he said during the Memorial Day Parade in the Laurelton neighborhood of Queens.

Politicker pressed him on whether he was going to stay in the contest after the Queens Democratic Party endorsed former Councilwoman Melinda Katz over him, a severe blow to the establishment-friendly pol's campaign.

Sources have said that party officials have been pressuring him to step out of the way ever since the endorsement. But Mr. Comrie simply refused to commit one way or another.

"I'm not telling you what I'm considering at the moment," he replied. "I'm looking at every option."

Mr. Comrie, who has struggled to raise money for his race, said he will make a decision about his candidacy in the next few days. He is facing Ms. Katz, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., State Senator José Peralta and State Senator Tony Avella in the Democratic primary.

Christine Quinn. (Photo: Getty)

Bronx City Councilman Fernando Cabrera was ready to defy established order.

He sensed that Speaker Christine Quinn was losing her grip on the legislative body.

"I'm scared," he told Politicker at the time. He kept the petitions he gathered at home--just to be safe.

Mr. Cabrera, a pastor, quietly went from colleague to colleague to rally support for two bills that the speaker had stalled, one that would let churches rent school property and another codifying a Tenants’ Bill of Rights. He said he gathered the dozen signatures necessary to give him the power to force a vote—a tactic, called a motion to discharge, that has not been deployed during Ms. Quinn’s tenure.

“I just walked up to them and said, ‘Listen, this is what I’m trying to do. Are you in?’” he later reflected. “Ninety-nine percent of them said yes.”

Mr. Cabrera’s school initiative will be among the first bills opposed by Ms. Quinn to come up for a vote in the Council. With Ms. Quinn’s leadership style coming under scrutiny by the press and political opponents as she campaigns for mayor, her famously tight control over the legislative body appears to be buckling.

Discussions with a wide range of council members, labor leaders and lobbyists—almost all of whom asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly—suggest a new sense of freedom in the Council, as well as the potential for chaos after the budget is passed in June.

According to Mr. Cabrera and others, council members have responded to Ms. Quinn’s lighter touch—whether real or perceived—by pushing their own proposals more aggressively, as well as by being bolder in their dissent.

Some challenges to Ms. Quinn’s rule are already visible. Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who is running for Queens borough president, recently gathered the media on the City Hall steps to demand that Ms. Quinn restore a scholarship named after his father, which he claims was cut after he publicly denounced her plan to rename the Queensboro Bridge. Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley has gone on national television to say that she believes Ms. Quinn slashed her budget three years ago as punishment for not giving the speaker enough credit in a press release.

Legislation mandating that most employers provide paid sick leave—which Ms. Quinn had bottled up for years—emerged for a vote so suddenly a few weeks ago that it was almost surreal. Like Mr. Cabrera, members had quietly threatened to force a vote using the motion to discharge.

And then, facing pressure from critics of stop and frisk, Ms. Quinn announced that she would allow a vote on a bill that would make it easier to sue the city’s police department for racial profiling—even though she warned the bill would create chaos for officers and compromise public safety. Never in her tenure has she allowed a vote on a bill she opposes.

Suddenly, some felt a new precedent had been set. If that bill was entitled to move forward, argued Mr. Vallone, why not everyone else’s? Since then, he has threatened to push three of his own stalled bills to the floor. One, which would create an animal abuse registry, will get a hearing next month.

While none of the Council insurgents have had to go so far as to use signatures to force a vote—thus far, they’ve merely threatened—the threats themselves suggest a new fearlessness among some members.

In the past, Ms. Quinn has silenced dissenters by defunding their district projects, known in the Council as member items. A much-cited front-page New York Times story on Ms. Quinn’s temper turned a spotlight on her use of the budget to maintain control by rewarding her allies with extra cash and doing the opposite to those who crossed her.

Although Ms. Quinn is currently the race’s front-runner, council members like Mr. Cabrera are making a calculation that her ability to push back is hampered by her mayoral ambitions. Her support could take a hit, for instance, if voters perceive her as willing to aggressively defund senior centers and other community programs.

“This year I imagine the speaker has to be very conscious that all eyes are on her,” he said. “If I do get punished, you guys are going to tell the story. And I’m going to hold a press conference.”

Ms. Quinn, who first won her Chelsea Council seat in 1999 and became speaker in 2006, has walked a fine line as she tries to manage the 51-member Council—a job that’s often likened to herding wild cats. While the tenure of her predecessor, Gifford Miller, was marked by constant squabbling with Mayor Bloomberg, Ms. Quinn, a former housing advocate, has chosen a different approach, working more closely with the mayor while keeping most of her members in line--thus far, at least. But that also puts her on precipitous footing as she seeks to balance business and labor and law-and-order types and police reform advocates, and other opposing groups as she tries to build a coalition for City Hall’s top job.

Although Ms. Quinn’s ability to wield the budget as a weapon is weakened by the media focus on her mayoral campaign, many sources predicted that greater unrest will unfold once the budget is finalized in June and the risk of funding cuts no longer weighs on lawmakers. “The budget is in a month and a half, then it’s open season,” one member mused.

Mr. Cabrera’s resolutions, relatively modest in their scope, aren’t likely to shake up the city. Neither will Councilman Oliver Koppell’s bill to require more handicap-accessible taxis, or Mr. Vallone’s proposed animal abuse registry.

But there is some concern among business leaders that their interests are no longer as protected as they have been in the last eight years of Quinn-Bloomberg collaboration.

Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the pro-business lobbying group Partnership for New York City, pointed to several pieces of legislation already winding their way through the Council, including one that would require projects that receive economic development money to complete community impact reports and another that bans employers from running credit checks on job applicants.

“We’re worried,” said Ms. Wylde about the potential push for additional business regulations. “That would be frightening to anyone that has concerns about thoughtful and responsible management of the city.”

In an interview, Ms. Quinn denied that the flurry of legislative activity indicated a fundamental shift.

“From my perspective, nothing has changed,” she told Politicker. “What’s happening now, at the end of the term, is exactly what I expected—that there would be a lot of interest from council members, especially those who might be term-limited out, in getting a lot of legislation passed,” she said, arguing that similar pushes were seen at the end of her predecessors’ terms.

“I hope and I have to believe that everyone who is running for office in this city will keep politics out of government,” she added. “We want to get as much good legislation passed into law as we possibly can.”

For their part, Quinn supporters pointed to media reports about slipping power at the end of past speakers’ terms, lapses that, they said, never actually emerged. A rebellious piece of legislation still needs to pass a chamber stocked with Quinn loyalists—the Council elected her speaker, after all, and she’s still the leading candidate for mayor. Furthermore, building support takes time. Advocates of paid sick leave worked for four years to get their vote, for example, holding countless press conferences, widening their coalition and running issue ads to build momentum.

Councilman Domenic Recchia, a close Quinn ally, argued that the legislative pushes were merely a “product of the calendar” as term-limited members try to cement their legacies, dismissing any threats as saber rattling. Councilman Mark Weprin generally agreed with Mr. Recchia’s take, as did Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the retail workers union, which has endorsed Ms. Quinn. Bronx Councilman Jimmy Vacca, who’s eyeing his own speakership bid, similarly said predictions of “chaos on the Council” were overblown, but said mayoral politics would undeniably play a role.

“To think that the Council will not be impacted by that political reality, I think, would be foolish,” he said. “Are we in a real political season, and is the politics going to be more profound going forward? Oh yeah.”

For council members as well as New York City’s government as a whole, the largest question in the days ahead could be the mayoral campaign, the outcome of which will have a significant impact on Ms. Quinn’s ability control the chamber. The September 10 Democratic primary looms large. A council member put Ms. Quinn’s situation bluntly: she’ll either be her party’s standard-bearer or a lame duck on her way out of office.

Either way, it’s going to get interesting.

“You know, there’s a fine line between mutiny and democracy,” Mr. Vallone said. “I think we’ll see a lot more of both.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Ms. Quinn first won her Council seat in 2001. It was in 1999.

Peter Vallone. (Photo: Facebook)

“Queens is discriminated against on an almost daily basis,” Councilman Peter Vallone told Politicker last week at Dark Horse, a restaurant near his City Council office.

“Things happen to Queens that would never happen to another borough,” he said, sipping a Stella Artois and taking bites of blackened salmon. “They’d never rename the Brooklyn Bridge. They’d never rename the Manhattan Bridge. Queensboro Bridge is renamed, nobody says a peep. Nobody makes a peep other than me.”

Mr. Vallone, a candidate for borough president, complains that Queens “hasn’t had a bully in the pulpit,” and he would like to change that. If his brash campaign so far is any indication, he’s taking his cues more from Brooklyn’s megaphone-wielding Marty Markowitz than Queens’s current officeholder, the comparatively tame Helen Marshall.

Mr. Vallone has railed against inaccessible animal shelters and cuts to local libraries. He waged a war to get ABC’s Good Christian Bitches off the air, which included a TMZ Live appearance to argue for a boycott. And he’s definitely not happy that a controversial statue was “stolen” by city government from its iconic location.

“The Triumph of Civic Virtue statue was stolen from Borough Hall; it’s now a pit!” Mr. Vallone exclaimed. “Given to Brooklyn.”

Mr. Vallone, the 51-year-old, guitar-playing, scuba-diving, Harley-Davidson-riding scion of former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., lacks the polished reserve of many public officials, and he lets his humor emerge sans filter on Facebook as well. For example, he once lamented his inability to see then-Knicks star Jeremy Lin play at Madison Square Garden with a joke about Mr. Lin’s racial background.

“so since i cant see jeremy lin on cable because MSG wants a 53% increase, i did the next best thing and took my daughters to applebees last night and had the ‘sizzling asian’ special,” he wrote.

A Democrat who supports one of Mr. Vallone’s rivals told Politicker that he saw these extemporaneous writings as a liability in one of the most demographically diverse counties in the country.

“Peter Vallone’s Facebook page is the hottest mess in New York politics. You can always count on him for offensive and insensitive status updates and generally crazy rants,” said the Democratic operative. “What’s his argument to East and South Asians? What is he really going to do for them and for other nonwhite groups whose votes will impact this race? He is not seriously courting those communities, and that’s a huge electoral problem for him.”

But Mr. Vallone said his critics should simply relax. “I’d do it again tomorrow,” Mr. Vallone told us of the Jeremy Lin post. “I thought it was funny, and it was meant as an homage to Jeremy Lin, whom I’m a huge fan of. If someone wants to have a sizzling meatball special in my honor, go do it. I have a story: Fox News came up to me that night and they said, ‘What do you have to say about the people who are offended by this?’ I said, ‘I’m very sorry that they had no sense of humor.’”

While Mr. Vallone shares some of his famous father’s conservative Democratic tendencies, his style is all his own. Peter Sr. was for several decades a powerful presence in city politics, representing Astoria on the City Council for almost 30 years, in addition to the 16 years he served in the powerful speaker’s office. But Peter Jr. did not learn his craft at his father’s feet.

“Even when he was speaker—I don’t know how he did it—he’d be home practically every night for dinner,” Mr. Vallone said. “Then he’d be right back out again. But he’d spend every dinner with us, with mom. Sitting around a table. Not talking politics, at all.”

For his part, Mr. Vallone said, he only started getting involved in his father’s political efforts during his unsuccessful mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns. “You would not even think these places exist in New York,” Mr. Vallone said when he first hit the campaign trail in 1998.

“I remember driving at like 2 o’clock in the morning through tremendous snowstorms, through places upstate that no one would have ever heard of,” he recalled. “I remember rooming in a room with Clyde Rabideau, who was the mayor of—what the hell was it—he was mayor of a small town upstate. He was running for lieutenant governor at the time. So we’d get these small, rinky-dink hotels and have to double up rooms because we’re not made of money, obviously. He turned out to be a nice guy, luckily, but it was weird rooming with the mayor of some town I don’t know of.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Vallone said he learned some powerful practical lessons from his father that he carried with him when he easily won Peter Sr.’s Council seat in 2001.

“He says it all the time—he said it yesterday again. He often quotes the prophet Micah about doing the right thing; it’s what he told us when we’re young. It’s what lets me sleep well at night despite the criticism I get,” he said. “I know that if I just do the right thing, I can’t be concerned about how other people react to it. I learned that from him.”

As far as his conservatism goes—Mr. Vallone ran all three of his Council races with the Conservative Party’s official support—he brushed off any criticism he might receive there as well.

“A lot of people have told me that,” he said when asked if he could be a poor ideological fit for the Democratic primary. “If that’s the case, then that’s the case ... I’m an old-school Democrat. There’s still a few of us left—not many. My father was, although I think I’m a little more conservative than he was ... I don’t intend to change, you can see with my recent [Facebook] postings.”

(Photo: Facebook)

Many things can be seen in Mr. Vallone’s recent Facebook postings, in fact, as he’s one of the most prolific Facebook users in New York City politics—driving his staff “crazy” on a daily basis. With questionable grammar and punctuation, Mr. Vallone lets loose as he chronicles his various adventures, whether it’s defending Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o in the face of his hoax girlfriend controversy, calling on schools to let kids sing “God Bless the USA,” posing in a Batman costume for Halloween (on his Harley, naturally), or his vigilante efforts against neighborhood speeders, litterers, graffiti artists and the like.

“If you ask my Mom, since I was 5 I used to yell at people who littered,” Mr. Vallone explained. “I chased down a guy on a motorbike not too long ago. I went after a guy who stuffed up a garbage can with a plastic bag so no one could use it ... I tried to do it again this weekend. I was out on the Harley and I saw another illegal motorbike but he was too fast ... I tried to catch up. They don’t have a license plate, so you got to actually have keep them under surveillance until the cops come. It’s not easy, but that’s just me.”

Mr. Vallone even championed his Facebook page as a tool of the democratic process of sorts, allowing him to personally gauge what’s happening in the community.

“I have a pretty strong following on Facebook, 8,000 followers or so,” he said, adding that he met some of his followers for the first time at his campaign kickoff the day before. “I personally—I think I pioneered this—I personally write every post. I personally respond to everybody who posts on my post. I personally respond to every message. It’s getting harder and harder. I hope to keep it up, but I’m up late at night doing it. And I need sleep.”

Should he be elected borough president, Mr. Vallone vowed to maintain his social media efforts, although he admitted that he might not be able to respond 100 percent of the time when his constituents number more than two million.

Whether or not Mr. Vallone will hold that office come January of next year remains to be seen, of course, as several contenders are vying to replace the term-limited Ms. Marshall. Competing against Mr. Vallone are a pair of State senators, José Peralta and Tony Avella, Councilman Leroy Comrie, former Councilwoman Melinda Katz and former Deputy Borough President Barry Grodenchik. Each has his or her own strength that could blunt Mr. Vallone’s own electoral efforts; Ms. Katz, for example, has been a strong fund-raiser, while Messrs. Peralta and Comrie have bases of support in the Latino and African-American communities, respectively.

Mr. Vallone is currently the leading fund-raiser, and the one poll conducted so far showed him with an edge—likely due to recognition of the Vallone name and the fact that campaign season has only now started to kick off.

“People say, ‘You have the Vallone name, it’s an advantage, blah, blah, blah,’” Mr. Vallone said on the topic. “I say, ‘You’re damn right it is!’ But it’s not the same for every political family. The Vallone name is now one that’s hopefully synonymous with integrity, and that’s important nowadays. So yeah, I have the name, I’m proud of the name. I’m never going to run from the name. In fact, I’m teaching my daughters the value of a hyphen.”

With a history of public service going back generations, there have been some twists and turns with the Vallone name as well.

“Ironically enough, my father was the one who took most of the power away from the borough presidents,” Mr. Vallone noted in our conversation. However, he said he was looking forward to using some of the remaining powers, including influence over zoning policies and community boards.

“The biggest power it has,” he added, “is the bully pulpit.”

Congressman Crowley addresses the crowd.

Earlier this evening, outspoken Councilman Peter Vallone officially launched his campaign for campaign for Queens Borough President. And, standing before an incredibly packed Greek restaurant in Astoria, both Mr. Vallone and his supporters made sure everyone was fully aware of the self-described conservative Democrat's independent streak.

"He was able to stand up to the Speaker when she was trying to bully him," said Norman Seabrook, the President of the New York City Correction Officers' Benevolent Association who officially endorsed Mr. Vallone today. "Can you imagine what he would do as borough president when given the opportunity to step forward, not only for the people in this room, but this borough? He is truly a man indicative of being able to become one of the greatest of all time."

For his part, Mr. Vallone touted his "fighter" credentials, comparing himself favorably to Mr. Seabrook and recounting his various political battles, including his high-profile, yet ultimately unsuccessful effort to stop Council Speaker Christine Quinn from renaming the Queensboro Bridge after former Mayor Ed Koch.

"He is a fighter and I am a fighter. I know how Norman fights and I use him as an example when I fight," Mr. Vallone said. "Norman knows who was out there--who was the loudest voice--when Queens didn't have the streets plowed. When we had the blackout of '06. Norman knows who stood up to the Mayor, who stood up to Con Ed. Norman knows who stood up to the Speaker and the Mayor when they took the Queensboro Bridge from us. No one else had the guts to do that."

And even though he is known to ruffle feathers, a bit of the political establishment was also present at today's event. Congressman Joe Crowley, the head of the Queens Democratic Party who has attended the campaign kickoffs of several of Mr. Vallone's rivals, effusively extolled Mr. Vallone while stating his current neutrality in the race.

"The Vallone family tradition goes way way back," Mr. Crowley said, heaping compliments on Mr. Vallone's father, former Council Speaker Peter Vallone, Sr. "Peter Vallone has been an outstanding and great city councilman. We know that there's a future for Peter Vallone in New York City politics. Although I haven't yet made decisions, seeing the presence that's here this evening sends a loud message as well, and I appreciate it. The way I look at it, no matter what I do, I'll make one ingrate and a lot of people mad at me. But that's the nature of politics."

"I've been known to be a pretty good ingrate," Mr. Vallone chimed in. "By the way."

(Photo: Getty)

Notre Dame University's star linebacker Manti Te'o, has been the subject of nonstop controversy since Deadspin revealed his story of personal tragedy--namely his girlfriend's death--had been nothing more than a prominent hoax.

In the storm of news coverage discussing Mr. Te'o's non-girlfriend, many have argued the football player promulgated the lie, but outspoken Queens Councilman Peter Vallone has come to Mr. Te'os defense.

"seems to me like manti teo is a great kid who got scammed by really bad people and then couldnt figure out a way to get out of it which wouldnt be very embarassing for the school and himself," Mr. Vallone wrote on Facebook. "remember all of these so called statements he made were in response to questions. it's not like he was putting out press releases. we should be going after the people who would do this to another person, not him."

In a subsequent Facebook post, Mr. Vallone noted many NFL teams have professional players accused of much worse, including the Baltimore Ravens' Ray Lewis, who was indicted on murder charges and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, once accused of rape.

‎“'hoax coud make NFL teams anti-manti'. Really?" he asked, referencing the upcoming draft. "They celebrate Ray and Ben but draw the line at saying u met your online hoax girlfriend? smh."

This is not the first time Mr. Vallone has commented on sports sensations in the news. At the height of then-Knicks player Jeremy Lin's popularity, for example, Mr. Vallone wrote, “so since i cant see jeremy lin on cable because MSG wants a 53% increase, i did the next best thing and took my daughters to applebees last night and had the ‘sizzling asian’ special.”

He then told a couple of his offended Facebook friends to lighten up, noting he is "going back to applebees now to have the 'italian special' to make me feel better."

Peter Vallone Jr.

Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. will announce his bid for Queens Borough President tomorrow, a Democratic source with knowledge of Mr. Vallone’s plans confirmed. Mr. Vallone will make his announcement at his father’s holiday party in Astoria. Peter Vallone Sr., the former City Council Speaker, is hosting the bash at the restaurant Don Coqui. The invitation noted the event will include “an announcement as to Council Member Vallone’s future political plans at the party, because he wants those closest to know first!”

Mr. Vallone, the chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, was long rumored to be seeking the open seat and is an immediate front runner in a crowded field. In October, he told Politicker he was "seriously considering" running for the Queens borough presidency. Though the outspoken and somewhat conservative Democrat is unlikely to receive the backing of the Queens Democratic Party, he has already raised more than $1 million for a run.

Former Councilwoman and Assemblywoman Melinda Katz, former Deputy Borough President Barry Grodenchik, State Sen. Jose Peralta and State Sen. Tony Avella have all already publicly launched campaigns for the Queens borough presidency. Councilman Leroy Comrie, a favorite of the County Democratic party, is likely to run as well, though, the most recent campaign finance reports show he has raised just $61,151.

Councilman Peter Vallone's Twitter avatar. (Photo: Twitter)

Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. has long maintained a prolific and popular presence on Facebook, but last month, he added Twitter to his social media repertoire. Though Mr. Vallone started sending tweets September 12, New York City politicos somehow didn't seem to see the account until last week. As soon as we heard the news Mr. Vallone joined Twitter we reached out to discuss his plans for his posts on the site, whether he'll be maintaining his Facebook page and speculation he may run for Queens Borough President or District Attorney once he's term-limited out of the Council at the end of next year.

"I'm just learning the Twitter thing. I don't even know how to respond or anything like that. I'm not sure what happens once I tweet...I don't know how to check to see if people paid attention to my tweet. I'm just learning this stuff," said Mr. Vallone.

Many politicians have aides maintain and monitor their social media presence, but Mr. Vallone assured us his Twitter account, like his Facebook page, will be directly under his control--despite the desires of his staffers.

"They wanted to control Facebook and then they realized that was a losing battle," Mr. Vallone said of his Council staff. "The second I walked into the office after I set up my Twitter account that night, my chief of staff walked in and said, 'Do you want us to handle this for you?' It wasn't actually a question, he was saying it like, 'We got it now.' And once again, I said, 'No. No, this is going to be me too."

So far, Mr. Vallone said the toughest aspect of Twitter for has been the site's 140 character limit on posts.

"I am finding it very difficult to try to stay within the characters because I'm very sarcastic and sarcasm doesn't translate with short tweets, I'm finding."

Though he's now taken to Twitter, Mr. Vallone has no plans to give up on his Facebook page.

"It took me a long time to get on to Twitter and the reason is that Facebook is, as you know, all me. No one else does it for me and it's an amazing way for me to interact with my constituents, but it also takes a heck of a lot of time. I'm up till two in the morning getting back to everyone who contacts me and just, you know, trying to manage the posts so that nobody is saying anything inappropriate," said Mr. Vallone. "I was just a little wary about taking on something else that's going to cause me to spend more time on it....But I'm definitely not going to put everything on Twitter that I have on Facebook, so don't stop paying attention to Facebook."

Mr. Vallone said the main difference between his Facebook and Twitter accounts going forward will be that his Facebook page is more personal.

"Facebook, I consider that my extended family," he explained. "I put things on there about my, you know, I just put my daughter's volleyball win on there. That kind of stuff is not going to go out on Twitter."

As of this writing, Mr. Vallone's Twitter account has just 87 followers, which is much less than many of his Council colleagues who have been on the site longer and a far cry from the thousands of friends he communicates with on Facebook. However, Mr. Vallone doesn't feel any pressure to amass more Twitter followers than his fellow Council members.

"I have absolutely never even looked at anyone else's amount of followers and I know that I have a lot on Facebook," said Mr. Vallone. "What I'm so proud of is...I can tell you the amount of people that I friended on one hand. These are people that have requested my friendship. I'm not out looking for followers. I never have been, I'm not going to start."

Mr. Vallone has been mentioned as a possible candidate for both Queens Borough President and District Attorney. In the past, he has said he would not challenge veteran Queens D.A. Richard Brown and that, were it not for term limits, he would prefer to keep his Council seat rather than running for anything else. We asked Mr. Vallone whether joining Twitter and ramping up his social media presence could be a sign he's planning to campaign for another office. He admitted he is "preparing" to run for something else, but denied his Twitter rollout was connected to any future ambitions.

"I am absolutely preparing for a future in public service. I'm seriously considering right now, Borough President. I have not made any final decisions, but, no, this really had nothing to do with it," said Mr. Vallone. "I just had free time one evening, one of my friends sent me an invitation to Twitter and I said, 'I should probably do this.'"

Another Queens politician, ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, severely injured his promising political career on Twitter after he was caught sending lewd photos of himself to women on the site. Mr. Vallone promised us he won't get involved in any similar social media scandals any time soon.

"I don't even know how to Twitter--or how to tweet a photo," he said with a laugh. "We have a long time to wait before we have to worry about anything like that."

Peter Vallone Jr.

Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. is not happy that he and controversial Council aide David Segal will be working in the same building again. Mr. Segal is back in the office of Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez after he was initially fired when the news broke that he served time in federal prison for attempting to torch an Army recruitment center in the Bronx in 2005.

"I didn't think it was possible for this episode to get more embarassing, but it just did," Mr. Vallone told The Politicker.

Mr. Segal was contrite when the news of his old arrest first resurfaced.

"I had and continue to have a firm belief that the war in Iraq is unjust. I have a strong set of values based on social justice," he said. "I apologize to anyone I might have disappointed and to those who might not agree with my past."

However, that answer hasn't satisfied Mr. Vallone, because Mr. Segal did not specifically say he was sorry for his actions or whether he was willing to renounce violence.

"I understand redemption and forgiveness, but he hasn't even started the process," he said. "He needs to beg forgiveness of our soldiers and police force, none of which he's done yet, and then the Council could consider rehiring him."

Some legal experts have suggested Mr. Segal's firing may have been a violation of job discrimination laws because he initially he had committed a felony when he got the job as Mr. Rodriguez's spokesman last year. Mr. Vallone doesn't believe that's the case because Mr. Segal reportedly called the officers who arrested him "pigs" in an online rant posted after the incident.

"You don't have to hire someone if the conviction has a direct connection to their job," Mr. Vallone said. "In case people don't notice, we have direct oversight on the NYPD and he called the officers 'pigs' when he was arrested. So, that's a direct enough connection for me."

Mr. Rodriguez has not responded to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Peter Vallone on his motorcycle. (Photo: Facebook)

Councilman and motorcyclist Peter Vallone doesn't like when his fellow bikers flout the rules of the road. Mr. Vallone saw a man on a dirtbike riding inside Astoria Park yesterday and he chased the rogue rider down to report him to the police.

"hey guy with the dirtbike, i saw you run it up into astoria park and ran your tail down with my bike and wrote down your license," Mr. Vallone wrote on his Facebook page last night. 

Mr. Vallone gave the dastardly dirtbiker's information to the local 114th Precinct.

"expect a visit from 114 tomorrow. guys like you give us all bad name...," he wrote.

This isn't the first time this year Mr. Vallone has unleashed his unique brand of vigilante justice on Queens' miscreants. In January, he dug through the trash to sic the Department of Sanitation on a man who illegally dumped household refuse in a public garbage can.

"i used some of my discretionary funds on these type cans, so pigs couldnt use them for their home or business garbage. so i took the bag out and went through it," Mr. Vallone wrote.

Senator Peralta (Photo: Facebook)

This morning, a new campaign committee, "Peralta 2013," appeared on the Board of Elections website, suggesting State Senator José Peralta is taking yet another step towards his increasingly likely campaign for Queens Borough President next year.

The committee will allow Mr. Peralta to raise money and more forcefully campaign for the race, especially when one potential candidate, Councilman Peter Vallone, already has $1 million in his own campaign war chest.

Other likely candidates include Assemblywoman Grace Meng and Councilman Leroy Comrie.

If all four candidates enter the race, there will be a diverse slate of candidates each hailing from different sections of an incredibly diverse borough. Queens is 28% Latino, 28% White, 19% African American, and 23% Asian.

An email placed to Mr. Peralta's campaign was not immediately returned.