Vickie Paladino Won't Heed Council Rule To Disclose Vax Status

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Bayside's City Council Member-elect is preparing to open her office doors, but it's unclear who will be there to greet constituents.

Vickie Paladino, the presumptive Council member-elect for Bayside's District 19, won't require her staff to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus.

Her stance — which was first reported by the New York Post — defies an existing mandate that all workers get the COVID-19 vaccine in order to enter City Hall or any Council offices, including district offices.

Paladino's son and former campaign director, Thomas Paladino Jr., confirmed the report with Patch.

"This is about protecting our staff," Paladino's son told Patch, adding that the campaign believes vaccine mandates to be a government overreach, despite rulings otherwise. "This has been a big part of our campaign from the beginning. We were elected, we won on this," he said.

Indeed, Paladino — who herself refuses to disclose her vaccination status — has publicly protested the city's vaccine requirements, falsely claiming the mandates are a HIPAA violation, a law that only applies in health care settings. She also flouted the state's COVID guidelines last winter, leading a maskless "COVID conga line" at an indoor GOP event.

"The mandates have been disastrous to a lot of people, socially and economically, and that's why we've been against them," Paladino's son told Patch, citing conversations with local business owners and parents over vaccine and masking requirements.

A majority of District 19 constituents, however, are vaccinated, city data shows, but Paladino's son said that there's a difference between the vaccine and vaccine mandates.

"The vaccine is one of many tools that we have that have allowed us to make such huge progress on the pandemic. I'm not going to say anything bad about the vaccine," he said, echoing the world's public health experts.

"But, there's a difference between vaccination and a mandate. Many, many, many people in this district who are vaccinated are also simultaneously against the mandate. We have heard from those people," he said.

Paladino told the Post that she hopes the next Council speaker or mayor-elect Eric Adams will roll back vaccine mandates, but her son said she won't change her anti-mandate stance either way.

"The vaccination requirement is only to enter the buildings and even that is tenuous, it's never been enforced. There's nothing about her job that requires her to enter those buildings," Paladino's son said, alluding to City Hall and Council offices where the mandate is currently in effect.

"She will be a fully voting member and fully active member of the City Council, period," he added, noting that she could vote remotely if necessary — a point that the chamber's newly-elected minority leader, Joe Borelli, also told the Post.

Paladino's son doesn't think the Council Member will have to vote remotely, but would not comment on what he thinks will happen should she choose to not follow through with the Council's vaccine mandate.

Paladino's apparent victory comes after absentee ballot tallies showed her maintaining her Election Night lead by about 400 votes.

This victory, which is her first in Queens following a state senate run in 2018, would bring the total number of Republicans in the 51-member Council from three to five; part of a red wave in this year's City Council elections, especially in Queens.

Bayside's Council race is one of three close Council contests where outstanding absentee votes will determine the election; the other two are in Brooklyn's District 43 and 47.

In both of those races, however, the Democratic candidates declared victory following the release of the absentee ballot tally.

Election results will be certified by the BOE on Nov. 30th.

Related Article: Tony Avella Concedes Bayside Council Race, Securing GOP Victory