Deb Ayala Braun

“My temper tends to get the best of me, but it seems to work.”

Neighborhood: Jamaica Hills Age: 34 Favorite isssue: Neighborhood Preservation and Rezoning

Deborah Ayala, vice resident ofthe Jamaica Hill Community Association since 2002, is the most vocal person in Jamaica Hills on the issues of community preservation because she takes it personally.

Greatest Achievement


Ayala, a legislative aid at the Rochester City Council, came back home to Jamaica Hills in 1998 to take care of her mother. She was “shocked” and did not recognize her neighborhood. Her mother passed away shortly after and Ayala inherited the house, along with the meticulously tended front lawn where she and her mother planted roses and other flowers together. One day she came home from work and found the rose bushes ripped out, and the entire lawn “demolished” by a so-called “homeowner” who was actually a developer building illegally. And so Ayala’s battle for preservation began.

In 2002 she was elected vice president of the civic association, and on Oct. 13 the City Council voted unanimously to approve the rezoning of Phase I of Jamaica Hills, preserving the one- and two-family home character of the neighborhood.

Ayala adds that despite the tremendous success of Jamaica Hills rezoning, her biggest achievement is Sofie Meihle Braun, her four-month-old baby she had with husband Martin.

Community Character

Ayala admits to being hot tempered, loud and in your face. She starts out politely but gets angry quickly if her demands are not met. While she has been successful in stopping illegal construction and is highly regarded for her contributions to Jamaica Hills, sometimes she admits she can go too far.

Knowing her temper, her neighbors will step in when they sense that she’s getting heated up.
“They’ll call me and tell me ‘You need to calm down.’ And I’ve had to calm down – they’re older and they’re wiser,” she said.

Most Outrageous Act

Ayala was at a loss when picking her boldest move.
But her favorite episode is the first time she met Councilman James Gennaro. She has been trying to get Gennaro to come out to look at the construction next to her house that destroyed her mother’s garden, until one day she took it one step further.

“I spent all day calling the media – all the local papers and all the dailies, like the Post and the Daily News.” She called Gennaro’s office and told them the press was coming, and that he better be there. “I started yelling at the people in his office – ‘Get him here now!’ So he shows up at the site, and I say to him – ‘This is what I’m talking about. This is unacceptable!’”

Gennaro got on the phone with Queens Dept. of Buildings Commissioner Magdi Mossad.

“I see Jim trying really hard, I’m getting really heated, I’m prancing back and forth,” she said. Mossad said that according to his computer everything was fine. “I grab the phone out of Gennaro’s hand, and I start screaming really, really badly: ‘It’s not what you see on your computer!’ I went off.”

Gennaro pulled the phone from Ayala, saying that it wasn’t just anybody on the line, that it was the commissioner.
“I told him: ‘I don’t give a damn who it is, he’s not God!’”
The next day the DOB issued a stop work order.

Working Relationship

As the councilman representing Jamaica Hills, Gennaro met Ayala early on in her campaign of preservation and has been an integral part in the rezoning of Jamaica Hills.

“Her whole thing is neighborhood preservation and rezoning,” Gennaro said. “She knows what she wants and she knows what
to do. She is determined, focused and persistent. That says it all. That’s the formula that yields success.”

–Alex Padalka

Corey Bearak

“Why am I a character? That’s a good question. I don’t know that I’m a character. Who thinks I’m a character?”

Neighborhood: Bellerose Age: 49 Favorite issue: Parks and recreation, Jewish issues

Corey Bearak says he doesn’tknow why he made this list other than his tireless commitment to working to better his community. He seems to be on every board imaginable, has good working relationships with several local politicians and is a visible leader of the Queens Jewish community. But is he a character? The guy admits to not only liking the band Poco, he’s started a petition drive to get the 70s country-rockers elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Now you might be getting into the character side of me,” he says.

Greatest Achievement

Bearak believes the easiest way to affect change in the community is to know your community. As a lifelong resident of Queens, the government affairs lawyer and former assistant to Mario Cuomo (when he was secretary of state), he said some of his greatest successes have come about by simply remembering his childhood in the borough.

“I remember playing basketball on the playground at [MS 172] and there was only one full court,” he said. “We’d be playing on it and all the older kids would always chase us away. I remembered that and I was able to get a park project going to address those kinds of problems. We were able to get four courts up there. Now you see kids playing full court basketball and you know they’re not going to get thrown out by the bigger kids. It’s satisfying to be able to fix problems that you remember when you’re all grown up.”

Community Character

One look at Bearak’s resume and you can see that he’s done a little bit of everything. He’s been a staffer for numerous local politicians and now serves as a consultant to public officials, government and community agencies, unions, private firms and individuals. He is active in the Queens Civic Congress, chairs the executive committee of the Northeast Queens Jewish Community Council and served seven years as president of that organization.
But perhaps his most overlooked passion is coaching - specifically, coaching girls’ softball. He managed for 12 years in the Glen Oaks Little League, coaching his daughter Marisa’s teams. In 12 years he won three district championships and says many of his players have gone on to play varsity softball at the high school level.

Most Outrageous Act

“I couldn’t say,” he says. “But if I had one, I probably couldn’t tell you!”

Working Relationship

If you ask anyone who has worked with Bearak, past or present, his greatest asset is his willingness to be everywhere all at once.
“There’s not anything that occurs in civic politics and in the Jewish services realm that he’s not involved in,” says Councilman David Weprin, who goes all the way back to Hofstra Law School with Bearak. “He’s always been a pretty big activist. He’s a dedicated public servant without running for office. He’s one of those guys that works behind the scenes, but you always know he’s there. He’s always getting things done.”

–Jack Buehrer

Bobbi and the Strays

“I drive my family crazy because animals are the only thing I really stop for.”

Neighborhood: Anywhere an animal is in need Favorite Issue: Saving Animals

Bobbi’s true love is animals. Her life is devoted to them and has been ever since she found three kittens in a paper bag that someone threw out in a parking lot when she was a kid. She later came across someone who was also an animal lover and before too long she had become obsessed.

“My life is always being interrupted by animals,” she said. “They are the only thing I can keep my attention on.”

Greatest Achievement

Bobbi’s greatest achievement is hard to determine. She considers every animal she has saved her greatest achievement. But forming her organization, Bobbi and the Strays, is probably the single greatest thing to happen to animals across Queens and all over New York City.

Bobbi takes animals from kill-shelters and from the street and from the parks, she cleans them up, gives them shots and neuters them, often using her own money. She runs foster homes for small dogs, assigning them to homes, but not before she does extensive interviews with the potential new owner, even checking the homes to make sure they are suitable.

“It is a seven-day thing, I put in 12 hours a day,” she said.

Community Character

Bobbi goes to any length to rescue disenfranchised animals across the city, often at the expense of her family and her friends. If its three in the morning, she will rise out of bed to help an animal picked up by animal control and she never considers putting an animal to sleep as an option.

“If I knew the animal control picked up a dog, I wouldn’t sleep until I picked up that dog,” she said. “They are like my children, we call them our children, we don’t really call them animals. I don’t really know what drives me. But when it’s cold, I think of them freezing, when it’s raining I think of them being wet outside.”

Most Outrageous Act

Bobbi once found a dog that had been dragged by a car for several blocks. Most people, anybody except Bobbi really, would have put the dog to sleep, given up hope, assumed it was dead. But not Bobbi. The dog has been dragged so far that its skin, almost entirely, had been torn off. Bobbi picked up the dog and rushed it to a vet, where, after a great deal of surgery, it was saved.

But this is only one example. There are many more endless examples of Bobbi’s heroism. And now her group, Bobbi and the Strays, which is a collection of dedicated volunteers, needs a home. Bobbi is trying to raise money to buy a shelter where she can better take care of the many animals she saves.

Working Relationship

Bobbi’s army of volunteers work for free and often long hours. But they all do it for the same reason; they all love animals and respect Bobbi’s work.

“Her love of animals, it is an undying love,” said one volunteer. “They are actually her life, she is dedicated to finding them homes and saving them when they are sick. The ones she really wants to save is the ones on the streets, the ones with nobody, the ones wandering the streets freezing, starving, sick. Animals in the sewer pipes, in the airports, she brings them back to health and a home and she keeps them as long as she has to and she gives them the medical attention they deserve.”

To contact Bobbi call 718-845-0779 or send donations: Bobbi And The Strays P.O. Box 170129, Ozone Parks, NY 11417.

— Peter Gelling

Vanessa Franco

“I get brushed off
a lot, I lose a lot of friends because of the goody-goody factory.”

Age: 22 Neighborhood: Woodside Favorite ISSUE: Anti-Vandalism

At 22 years of age, Vanessa Branco is the youngest Community Character on this list. And that is exactly why she is on this list. When the rest of her friends have odd jobs, go out several times a week and generally live the typical college existence, Branco is working for free, for her community with the United Forties Civic Association. Having grown up in Woodside, she has a special commitment to the neighborhood.

Greatest Achievement

Branco works tirelessly with the United Forties to better the community, but her work cleaning it up might be her greatest accomplishment. Branco formed a committee to help clean up and prevent graffiti from even happening in the first place.
“My greatest accomplishment was probably forming the anti-graffiti committee; we had about a hundred people,” she said. “But I don’t do it for the accomplishment. People call me up and ask me to help them.”

Branco said it was simple. She saw a problem in the community that she didn’t want to get worse and she decided she needed to do something about it, so she got involved with the United Forties and cleaned up the graffiti in her neighborhood.

Now she has been with the United Forties for two and half years. Branco majored in business and is now working for web publishing company. She said she doesn’t intend to make a career out of working in community affairs even though she is well set up for a potential political career. But she did say that no matter what she ends up doing with her life, she hopes to involved one way or another.

Community Character

Branco was going to college and although she knew she didn’t have to work or at least that she could have worked at a paid job, she decided she wanted to help the community somehow.
“I just wanted to help out, to be more aware of what was going on,” she said.

Little did Branco know that she would soon become the Vice President of the United Forties and own the honorable title of the youngest Community Character.

“I just kept on going with the flow, I saw problems with the neighborhood and I knew I could do something, so I pursued them, I formed committees and got people together,” she said.

Most Outrageous Act

Branco said that among the people she works with, her age is never really an issue.

“I get the same respect as if I were older,” she said.
The only difference, she said, her age makes is that it sometimes creates a conflict in terms of ideas.

“Some of the older people might not like change,” she said. “But I am all for it.”

But becoming so active on a community level at such a young age is an outrageous act in itself. While her friends are out partying, Branco is cleaning up graffiti. To say the least, this causes a certain amount of ire among her friends.

“All the time I get the most negative remarks from my friends,” Branco said. “I get brushed off a lot, I lose a lot of friends, because of the goody-goody factory, and they just think I am crazy, they can’t understand how I work for free.”

Working Relationship

Among those that Branco works with she is described as a hard worker who is a testament to her generation. If more 20-somethings were as involved as Branco, there is really no telling what would happen in this community.

— Peter Gelling

Bobi Brooks

“Politicians are trying to kill me.”

Bobi Brooks is a street solider
who prefers to work alone.
She chooses not to attend community board or civic association meetings, and she does not trust authority because “nothing good can come from them.”

Getting in touch with Brooks requires: waiting for her to call because she does not have a phone (she turned it off because she was being stalked by a former boyfriend); or looking for her on the streets of Southeast Queens as she does street safety surveys.

Greatest Achievement

Brooks is known by elected officials as somewhat of an annoyance.

If she feels a streetlight needs to be placed on a street, she will phone, write and visit every politician responsible for that street in order to get it fixed or replaced, she will stop at nothing. Brooks believes in a safe environment to live and work and she often has her eye out around town looking for things that might endanger her neighborhood, and that could be anything from people loitering or traffic problems to prostitution and gang activity.

She said her goal is to have her demands met in no later than a week, and if they are not met in a timely manner, she cries conspiracy – much to the chagrin of local politicians. But she feels if the pressure is not on, the positive results will never show.
Her greatest achievement was having a racist store clerk fired from Green Grocery in Jamaica. According to Brooks, the Asian cashier threw a plastic bag at an elderly, black customer’s face.
Brooks contacted Councilman Allan Jennings’ office and the 103rd Precinct. And she continued to contact them, over and over again, almost to the point of harassment, until the store clerk was relieved of her post.

Brooks said she fought to have the clerk fired because “If I worked in a store in a Korean neighborhood and threw a bag in an elderly Korean woman’s face, I would not hear the end of it.”

Community Character

If Brooks does not approve of something going on in the community, it automatically becomes “unacceptable or racist.”
Brooks is a superhero in her own right. Cops dread her phone call, and anyone breaking the law in her neighborhood fears getting caught by her because they know she will report them.

Most Outrageous Act

There is no shame in Brooks’ game. When she suspected there was prostitution going on around Springfield Boulevard, she walked up and down the street after dark to confirm what she heard.

Since her stroll down Springfield Boulevard, Brooks and her boyfriend have decided to play it safe, she does her investigative work from the passenger seat of his car.

Working Relationship

Many elected officials labeled Brooks a “drama queen.” Some have said she tends to overreact to certain indiscretions in the community.

According to Jennings, she blew the store incident way out of proportion. But if you ask Brooks and the people in the community, they will tell you that it is the little things that keep them safe and every little bit counts.

Whatever others think about the lengths Bobi Brooks goes to make her neighborhood safe, she is successful in keeping an eye out for every last wrong doing.

— By Raynelle Cerica Bull

Sabina Cardali

“It’s never a dull moment.”

Neighborhood: College Point Age: 72 Favorite Issue: Overcrowding

Sabina Cardali has lived in College Point for the past 42 years. She is president of the College Point Civic and Taxpayers Association, the president of the 128th Street Block Association, and writes a column for the Times Ledger. Until recently, she was also on the College Point security patrol, but she “put that aside for now.”

These days, she’s largely involved with the people who often do not have the resources to defend themselves – the very old and the very young. Cardali has been teaching a religion class for decades, and now frequently works at nursing homes. Herself a grandmother who goes to visit the young ones in Las Vegas, Cardali has grown more concerned with making sure that children in College Point have figures like her in their lives.

“This year I’m gong to be the Halloween witch. That’s always titillating,” she said. “I like working with children because too many parents are both working these days, and they don’t have too much time on their hands, and people should be paying attention to these children.”

Greatest Achievement

According to State Senator Frank Padavan, Cardali’s greatest and most recent contribution has been in opposing the development of 180 retail stores at the old Flushing Airport site.
“It would have been much too crowded, there were many, many stores that they wanted,” Cardali said. “You would need a pogo stick to get around the area!”

For Cardali, however, the biggest achievement is what she gets back from giving.

“It is the love that these people at the nursing homes give you, and also the children,” she said.

She values being remembered as having contributed to people’s lives, recalling recently being approached by a student from her religion class she used to hold in her basement. The student was 40 years old, which meant that Cardali taught him 30 years before this meeting, and he remembered her.

“I asked him: ‘Do you remember what I taught you? Because if not I will have to bring you back there!’ And he said he did,” Cardali recalled.

Community Character

Cardali is giggly and likes to crack little jokes, and is a woman utterly comfortable in her roles as grandmother, wife, civic leader and religion teacher. She is also one very persistent lady when it comes to overcrowding of College Point and speaks her mind when getting the local politicians to help her community.

“I do all this for nothing, if I feel it’s correct,” she said. “The politicians are getting paid for it – they should take care of this!”

Most Outrageous Act

“I never did anything radical because I had very strict Italian parents, and they were there all the time. That’s what I learned, and I think that’s the way to go,” Cardali said.

Working Relationship

“Sabina is ubiquitous in terms of her activities in College Point,” said Senator Frank Padavan. “In her area particularly, she does stand out as a very hard worker.”

Passionately concerned with everything from opening sports fields for children to the hazards of spraying for the West Nile virus, Cardali usually takes on whatever major issue is affecting the neighborhood.

“She definitely has her finger on the pulse of everything that’s going on in her community,” said Councilman Liu. “And she will definitely let you know exactly what’s on her mind.”

–Alex Padalka

Bob Cermelli

“I just try to do the simple, logical things other people don’t seem to think about.”

Nickname: King of the Unpaid Jobs Neighborhood: Middle Village Age: 60 Favorite Issue: Against Eliminating School Boards

Bob Cermelli says he doesn’t go out in search of attention, but he usually seems to find it. The former school board president, union representative and current executive board member of Community Board 6 has worked hard throughout his life to affect change from “behind the scenes,” earning him the dubious nickname, “The King of the Unpaid Jobs,” by his wife.

“I suppose I am,” he said. “But I’ve been a community activist for a long time. It’s something I’ve committed myself to.”

Greatest Achievement

Cermelli said his greatest achievement has been getting some much-needed school facilities built in his overcrowded Distrcit 24. With the expertise he gained in his 33 years working for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, he was able to spearhead the building of several schools in the area, including PS 7, IS 5 and School of Hero, which he named. He’s also been vocal about the city’s decision to do away with school boards.

A longtime school board member himself, he said he’s proud to have helped several concerned parents in District 24 to start their own committee which is its own body and run by the parents themselves.

“I’m happy to say that organization is still meeting today,” Cermelli said.

Community Character

Through his years as an active member of school and community boards, as well as a litany of other groups and organizations, Cermelli has made more friends and influenced more people than he can remember. Literally.

“One thing I’m proud of is that, when I go around the community, people know me,” he said. “I go into the store or walk down the street and I hear, ‘hi, Bob,’ or ‘hey, Bob, how are you?’ It’s not something I’m proud of, but I’m embarrassed to say I don’t always know their names, or even recognize them! I’ll ask them where I know them from and as they tell me, sometimes it will come back to me.”

So when you bump into Bob Cermelli, have your bio ready.

Most Outrageous Act

Cermelli said that outrageous acts are the one thing he tries his hardest to avoid. He’s not afraid to take his issues to politicians and explain his side, but when he tells of these stories, he uses words like “calmly” and “carefully.”

“I try not to be too flamboyant or flashy,” he said. “That’s not always the best way to get things done. I’m critical of a lot of things, but I try to get people to understand the issues. Too many times people are squabbling when they should be working together.”

Working Relationship

Bob Cermelli isn’t so much a pest as he is a “pusher,” according to Community Board 5 District manager Gary Giordano.

“He’s very good at making it his business to be aware of the issues and to make the board aware of the things he thinks are the important ones,” Giordano said. “He’s very good at pushing our board to make the right things the priorities. He’s very caring and very organized and very thorough. He’s definitely been able to make a real civic-type mark.”

– Jack Buehrer

James Cervino

“That’s a big deal and it freaked me out.”

Age: 43 Neighborhood: College Point Favorite Issue: Environmental Preservation

A professor at Pace University with degrees in marine biology and disease pathology, James Cervino never planned on turning his academic career into a neighborhood extracurricular activity. But the once- sleepy neighborhood of College Point, which sits in the midst of a vulnerable wetlands and precious glacial aquifer, soon came under threat from stepped-up development—and, without intending to, Cervino found himself involved.

Greatest Achievement

As an advocate for the preservation of coastal ecology, Cervino brings scientific know-how to community activism, which makes him a rare resource for a wide range of causes in and around College Point. His greatest accomplishment came just this month, when a coalition of homeowners, politicians and environmentalists defeated a plan to turn the site of the Flushing Airport into a sprawling wholesale center—despite the public support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s top economic officials.

Cervino conducted pro-bono studies of the wetlands on the airport site to show the ways in which intensive commercial development could harm the regional environment. “We highlighted the significance of the wetland in terms of biodiversity.”

Community Character

Some community activists are born; others enter the fray almost by accident. Cervino, who was born in Corona but moved to College Point at age five, is an accidental activist.

About three years ago, as a school exercise, he took a group of students out to the waterfront area near his house to conduct some basic experiments on the environment. Cervino was shocked by what they found.

“I was using the wetlands as a laboratory with my students,” he recalled.

The College Point coastline is dotted with new residential and commercial developments, and the students found that shellfish near the construction sites showed high levels of toxins and diseases. Others marine life away from the construction appeared healthy.

“That’s what got me started in the activism, to stop dumping in the water associated with these construction sites,” he said.

Most Outrageous Act

Things took a dramatic turn earlier this year, when Cervino and a few other activists uncovered an illegal waste disposal operation at a rundown boatyard in College Point. At the site, an unscrupulous business had set out to destroy vast quantities of yellow foam material once used to float barges. Cervino discovered that the business had been burning the foam, sending toxic fumes out into the surrounding streets.

“The fact that I saw the toxic foam and it was being burned—we’re talking about toxic chemicals getting into the human respiratory system,” Cervino said. “That’s a big deal and it freaked me out.”
It freaked out officials from the State Department of Environmental Conservation, who sent armed enforcement officers to the scene.

Working Relationship

Joan Vogt, the executive director of the State Northeast Queens Nature and Historical Preserve Commission, called Cervino a rare asset in College Point. “He has something we’ve never had before, as far as hands-on training on the environment and useful knowledge of how to get things done,” she said.

— Aaron Rutkoff

Evergreen Chou

“I joined the third party to increase the democratic process. There’s just so much dominant control [of the main party candidates], from the speaker to the governor, that you are no longer in a representative democracy. ”

Nickname: Long Hair, but prefers Ox for the People Neighborhood: Flushing Age: 42 Favorite Issue: Affordable housing, free David Wong campaign

As co-founder and current head of the Flushing Greens/ No to War Party, Evergreen Chou is known for his support of leftish causes and his incredibly long hair. A self-described “outsider” of the political process, Chou belongs to few civic associations or organizations, but manages to take on a wide array of issues in his roles as the Green party representative in Flushing.

Greatest Achievement

Chou believes that his singular most important victory has been the Oct. 21 New York Appellate Division’s granting appeal of the case of Chinese immigrant David Wong. While in prison at the Clinton Correctional Facility for robbery, David Wong was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1986 fatal stabbing of another inmate. The Free David Wong campaign, which Chou is associated with, claimed that Wong was “scapegoated” and did not receive a qualified interpreter who spoke his dialect for the trial. Following a two-year investigation, a key witness recanted his testimony against Wong, admitting to lying in order to receive a transfer to a less dangerous prison and a letter of recommendation.

Community Character

What makes Chou a community character is also what makes Chou stand out from the majority of civic leaders around Flushing. In an area increasingly concerned with preserving community character, sometimes at the cost of blocking the development of affordable housing, Chou has been a proponent of the rights of lower-income families. Chou has been pushing for raising the minimum wage, provisions for affordable housing, affordable commercial real estate to protect small business, as well as bilingual education for immigrants.

Most Outrageous Act

Chou’s most outrageous act is his insistence on getting on the ballot. Ever since volunteering for the campaign of “Grandpa” Al Lewis for Governor, Chou wanted to run for City Council. In 2001, Chou lost the only New York Green primary to fellow activist Paul Graziano. In 2002, Chou ran unsuccessfully for an Assembly seat. Even by his own account, these were long shots, but they were an alternative that, he believes, people are paying more and more attention to.

“Running with the third party, you don’t get enough press coverage or enough contributions – we work our day job, night job, part time job,” he said. However, Chou believes that people are starting to doubt that the current political process is helping them.

Working Relationship

While Chou has been called a “gadfly of the system” and a “righteous dude,” he has also earned the title of “perennial candidate.” However, even the man he technically ran against, Councilman John Liu, sees in Chou a clear commitment to his causes.

“Evergreen has run for office several times to highlight the issues that he considers important,” Liu said.

Evergreen and Liu have worked together frequently, partly by virtue of being Asian American representatives of the Flushing community. In the current elections, Chou is facing fellow Chinese Americans Jimmy Meng and Meilin Tan, and all three have gone to their communities to rally Asian American support as the perfect candidates to represent that constituency. Chou, however, will always stand out from the crowd.

“Evergreen is a very colorful person,” said Liu. “One thing’s for sure – my mother would not approve of a hair cut like that.

– Alex Padalka

Norbert Chwat

“You look at the people who cross your path and you can tell who is out for the glory and who wants to help people.”

Neighborhood: Forest Hills Ages: 80 Favorite Issue: Improving safety on Queens Boulevard

Norbert Chwat says he and his wife are most concerned with the quality of life for the citizens. And they know a little about quality of life. Estelle immigrated to the United States from Poland in 1929 when she was only five years old. A few years later, Norbert escaped the Holocaust hopping the last boat for the states in Norway. Since then, they’ve done everything from starting a newspaper in Virginia to a community action league here in Queens.

Greatest Achievement

You might consider Norbert and Estelle Chwat “The First Couple” of civic activism in Queens. The two have fought mightily to push for improvements to Queens Boulevard, which has claimed the lives of more than 80 pedestrians, and injured thousands of others, since 1993. Norbert has run for city council, with Estelle running his campaign, and served as Vice Chair for Community Board 6.

Perhaps their greatest achievement has been the creation of the Forest Hills Action League more than five years ago. Both still serve as co-presidents of the organization, which, through marches, silent protests and petition drives, has effectively pushed local politicians for change in many areas.

Community Characters

Neither Chwat is afraid to tackle any issue that threatens the safety or way of life of the people of Queens, and specifically Forest Hills. Estelle has publicly fought with the Queens Public Library system for being closed on Sundays and for carrying “terrorist, anti-Semitic” books, while Norbert has moonlighted as a Ham radio operator for the American Red Cross Emergency Radio Service.

Most Outrageous Act

Both Chwats certainly have a flair for the dramatic, but when you are hospitalized while fighting for what you believe in, it’s easy to pick your most outrageous moment. While running for city council in 2001, the Queens Democratic Party challenged Norbert’s petitions and the two were called before the Board of Elections to defend his signatures.

While testifying before the board, Estelle suffered a small seizure defending her husband. While at the hospital, the board voted to take Norbert off the ballot, further drawing the ire of the scrappy couple.

Working Relationship

According to Kathleen Histon, district manager for Community Board 6, it’s hard to argue with success.

“They’re extremely enthusiastic about what they believe in and the people who support them, support them just as enthusiastically.”

— Jack Buehrer