It\u2019s no longer all sunshine and roses between Council District 30 candidates Alicia Vaichunas and Phil Wong \u2013 according to Vaichunas, at least.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see him, but I won\u2019t communicate,\u201d Vaichunas said last Tuesday. \u201cI don\u2019t want people to think we\u2019re a duo anymore. We\u2019re not. We\u2019re separate ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaichunas is a Republican, and Wong is a Democrat, but they\u2019re ideologically almost identical. Whoever wins on Tuesday will carry on term-limited Council Member Bob Holden\u2019s conservative legacy in the suburban district in central Queens. Both candidates work in his office, Vaichunas as deputy chief of staff and Wong as his director of budget and constituent services. It’s a fitting race to replace a representative who himself has run on both major parties\u2019 ballot lines. Holden has declined to support one candidate over the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two potential heirs are (were?) friends. They have long been remarkably<\/a> cordial. Vaichunas helped Wong canvass during a tight primary and celebrated when he won. And Wong, along with Holden, still maintains that there is no bad blood between the two.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Vaichunas begs to differ. The two opponents previously vowed that if they won, they would hire the other. Now, when asked what happens after Election Day, Vaichunas said she won\u2019t hire Wong if she comes out victorious, nor accept a job on his staff.<\/p>\n \u201cI know if you talk to Phil, Phil will say he\u2019ll still hire me,\u201d she said in a phone call on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is always the commitment. That does not change,\u201d Wong said, sure enough. When asked about Vaichunas\u2019 change of heart, Wong said \u201cI\u2019ve not heard about that.\u201d<\/p>\n One of Vaichunas\u2019 complaints is that Wong\u2019s social media manager, area civic leader Christina Wilkinson, blocked her and her volunteers from Wong\u2019s Facebook page. She holds this against both Wilkinson and Wong, adding that things with her opponent were fine until \u201cthis one person came along on his campaign.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t leave me out on things. I always included Phil on things \u2013 \u2018Hey, Phil, there\u2019s a meeting here,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then (you) start doing things behind my back? Oh, that\u2019s fine. I\u2019ll do my own things, you know. I thought we were friends. I guess not.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about whether she blocked the Republican and her fans, Wilkinson texted City & State that Vaichunas\u2019 \u201csupporters went so far as to create burner accounts to attack (Wong). I am not wasting my time playing that game.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilkinson, Vaichunas and Wong all worked together on Holden\u2019s first campaign for office. In a Thursday phone call, the council member sang all three of their praises.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have a good relationship with all of them,\u201d said Holden, who has insisted on staying out of the drama and said he advised both candidates to do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last Tuesday, Holden and Vaichunas canvassed together with their preferred mayoral candidate, Republican Curtis Sliwa, in Middle Village. (Wong said he is supporting Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo equally.)<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody knows I\u2019ve been with Bob for eight years, everybody knows what I\u2019ve done for the community, and that gives me a leg up,\u201d Vaichunas told City & State between photo ops.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhereas Phil, he\u2019s only been there for a year and a half, and he\u2019s budget director. How good he is on that \u2013 hm,\u201d she said, shrugging pointedly.\u00a0<\/p>\n If any tension was growing throughout the fall \u2013 through Facebook tiffs or otherwise \u2013 Wong getting tossed from his campaign office could not have helped. Both candidates rented spaces on the ground floor of the same Maspeth building on a month-to-month lease, but when the building\u2019s landlord found a permanent tenant, Wong was the one to get the boot. A subsequent New York Post article<\/a> about Wong taking his campaign mobile featured photos of the building with \u201cAlicia\u201d signs in the window.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Republican said she has strong support in Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale. Wong said his support is strongest in Elmhurst.<\/p>\n \u201cI have my grassroots support out there,\u201d Wong said. \u201cBut the others I have to work, get support one door at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s no longer all sunshine and roses between Council District 30 candidates Alicia Vaichunas and Phil Wong \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":353120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,13260,70742,405,403,6640,13261,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-353119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-campaigns-elections","10":"tag-heard-around-town","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-council","14":"tag-news-politics","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115487059970381651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}