Copyright Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Staten Island Republican politicians showed up in force on Saturday to get out the vote for mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa and other party candidates in the November elections. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis introduced former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who spoke remotely at the event, held outside the Republican Party headquarters on Richmond Road in New Dorp. Sliwa, who was serenaded with the theme from the “Rocky” movies, presented himself as the candidate who knows Staten Island the best and will make sure the concerns of residents are addressed should he be elected mayor. He tapped into the nickname of Staten Island as the “Forgotten Borough” of New York City, and predicted that trend would continue under the leadership of either Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani or former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “You think Zohran and Andrew knew how to get to Staten Island without a GPS?” he asked. Describing himself as the “mayor of mass transit,” Sliwa said he regularly takes the subway. He also said he has traveled to the borough on the Staten Island Ferry and through its neighborhoods on the Staten Island Railway. “And when I took the express bus, boy, I found out what all of you go through,” Sliwa said, claiming that the MTA app doesn’t provide accurate information about travel times. He railed against the “City of Yes” effort to generate affordable housing, saying it was the reason why battery energy storage sites have proliferated on the Island. Sliwa praised Island Republicans for being part of the effort to squash a proposed eight-acre site on Victory Boulevard in Travis. Sliwa took a number of pot shots at Mayor Eric Adams and Cuomo for their Support of “City of Yes.” Cuomo, Sliwa said, has “billionaire friends” and cozy relationships with real estate developers. Sliwa vowed to nix both speed cameras and congestion pricing, describing them as taxes. He said he plans to cut property taxes and eliminate them for seniors age 65 or older. Sliwa also said he is looking to eliminate income taxes for 10 years for adults in their 20s through 40s, Millennials and Gen Zers. Conversation with Trump Giuliani said he had a phone conversation with President Donald Trump in which the commander in chief made favorable comments about Sliwa. As with many Republicans, Giuliani questioned whether he should back Sliwa, given the possibility of Mamdani winning due to a three-way split in the votes. “He told me to vote my conscience,” Giuliani said. “He said, long haul, that’s going to help the city the most.” Giuliani said the president referred to Sliwa as “a really smart guy.” Taking aim at Mamdani Malliotakis zeroed in on Mamdani’s membership in the Democratic Socialists of America. “If you listen to Zohran Mamdani, his policies are literally out of the Karl Marx communist playbook,” the congresswoman said. “Seizing the means of production, abolishing private property rights, defunding the police, closing jails. It is completely outrageous and scary that this man can be mayor in just a few days. This is serious. This will destroy our city’s economy. This will eliminate public safety, everything that this city stands for.” She said that New York City was “built on the American dream” of a free market and capitalist economy. “It is the economic engine for the country,” she said of New York City. “And we cannot have somebody who has these radical left-wing views lead it.” She questioned Mamdani’s associations with certain Muslim clerics and his relative lack of work experience at age 34. Mamdani has been a state assemblyman representing Queens since 2021. “While Zohran Mamdani was a toddler in his diapers in Uganda, this man, Curtis Sliwa, was out patrolling our streets to keep our city safe,” Malliotakis said of Sliwa’s leadership in the Guardian Angels. “Think about it. God forbid we have another terrorist attack, another pandemic, another Hurricane Sandy. “Do you want a guy who’s 34 years old, never had a job other than being a bad hip-hop artist managing this city? You don’t. And that is why we have to go out Tuesday and vote for Curtis.” Assemblymen Michael Tannousis, Michael Reilly and Sam Pirozzolo, and City Councilmen David Carr and Frank Morano, City Council candidate John Shea and artist Scott LoBaido were among the speakers. Many of the speakers asked rally attendants to vote a straight Republican ballot and “no” for all the propositions.
