Thank you for visiting my website.
My name is Joe Mendola and I am running to become NYS Senator for the 29th Senatorial District. To see which parts of Manhattan are covered by the district, please click on the District Map tab above.

I am running against Tom Duane. Mr. Duane has held the seat for over 10 years.
During Mr. Duane’s tenure, he valiantly supported and sponsored marriage equality legislation, which I also support. However, his efforts were for naught as the NYS Senate recently rejected Mr. Duane’s bill to legalize same sex marriage in New York State.

While I support and applaud Mr. Duane’s efforts with regard to marriage equality, I strongly believe that we need a senator who will also focus on issues which directly affect our entire community.

For instance, while Mr. Duane champions himself as a defender of gay rights, he did nothing to prevent the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital, a primary medical care provider to the gay community. The closure of St. Vincent’s also affects others in the district as our local hospitals and emergency rooms are more crowed now since they must absorb the patient flow that would have otherwise gone to St. Vincent’s. Mr. Duane was NO WHERE to be found as St. Vincent’s lumbered toward its closing. All Duane did was issue press releases indicating that he was “monitoring” the situation.

I say that Duane ought to be ashamed of himself for letting the community down and denying the district an important and longstanding provider of quality medical care.
With all due respect, Mr. Duane has been a State Senator for over 10 years and a NYC Council member for 7 years prior to that. He has become an entrenched politician who seems more concerned in his own re-election rather than serving the community.

If elected your State Senator, I will serve no more than 6 years total and will dedicate myself to serving the community. I believe in citizen government. Given the dysfunction in Albany, it is time we had representatives who are not career politicians but are rather members of the community who understand the needs of its citizens and is willing to address those needs in a concrete and substantive manner, even if it means doing things that may be counter to a politician’s self interest.

With your help and support, that is exactly the sort of Senator that I intend to be.

Joe Mendola

Paid for by Mendola for NYC, Inc.