{"id":91160,"date":"2026-01-06T16:15:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91160\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T16:15:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:15:22","slug":"phil-wong-officially-takes-over-as-district-30-council-member-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/91160\/","title":{"rendered":"Phil Wong officially takes over as District 30 Council Member \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"wong\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Council Member Phil Wong (left) with former Council Member Robert Holden (right).<\/p>\n

Photo by Ramy Mahmoud<\/p>\n

As of Jan. 1, Council Member Phil Wong<\/a> dropped the -elect from his title and officially took office representing District 30 and replacing his former boss, Robert Holden. Wong stayed true to his word and retained the entirety of Holden\u2019s staff, including Alicia Vaichunas, his former opponent during the election, who will return to her same position as deputy chief of staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hit the ground running on Day One,\u201d\u00a0said Wong. \u201cThis team has years of experience, they are from the district, they know what the community needs, and they\u2019ve been doing the hard work day in and day out. We\u2019ll continue the great work that\u2019s been done and work even harder for this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

District 30 consists of Maspeth<\/a>, Middle Village<\/a>, Glendale<\/a> and Ridgewood<\/a>, with parts of Rego Park<\/a> and Elmhurst<\/a>. Wong won the election both by riding the blue wave that swelled in most of the country and with a grassroots team of door knockers and canvassers, who he said managed to visit every corner of the vast district at least once. Bernard Chow, Wong\u2019s campaign manager who directed the canvassers, will be putting those community outreach talents to use as one of the constituent service liaisons. Accompanying his promise to bring on board the office, which he worked in as director of constituent services and budget, Wong also vowed to continue work on the bills Holden had in the works, which include Ryder\u2019s Law<\/a>, Priscilla\u2019s Law<\/a> and a package of bills<\/a> dedicated to veterans.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Wong also stated he will include the reconstruction of the St. Saviour\u2019s Church<\/a>, a 160-year-old church disassembled by Holden and the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA) that has yet to be rebuilt, into the capital budget plan for 2026. However, he remains dubious that the City would be willing to fund the project.<\/p>\n

The contentious 2025 race for District 30\u2019s City Council seat ended in dramatic fashion when Vaichunas rebuked her former boss for a lack of support during her campaign. However, despite some initial allegations of dirty campaign tactics levied at Wong\u2019s team, Vaichunas since agreed to reprise her role in the office and has been in talks with Wong since early December on how best to serve the district. Since Nov. 4, Vaichunas had taken her leave from Holden\u2019s office to recuperate, spend time with family and manage her business. Wong announced Viachunas would be rejoining during a Queens GOP holiday celebration.<\/p>\n

\"\"Alicia Vaichunas and Councilmember Phil Wong at the Middle Village Residents Association meeting late November. Photo by Patrick Stachniak<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make him shine and to make sure he does right by the community like we all held Bob accountable,\u201d Vaichunas said. \u201cWe\u2019ll hold Phil accountable, but I think it\u2019ll be great. I think he\u2019ll do a lot of great things for the community. I think he\u2019ll go across the board to everybody: Elmhurst, Ridgewood, Rego Park, Maspeth and Middle Village. I don\u2019t have any regrets\u2026 because if it wasn\u2019t me, I\u2019m glad it\u2019s Phil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest of the staff appointments are as follows:\n<\/p>\n

Daniel Kurzyna, Chief of Staff
\nAlicia Vaichunas, Deputy Chief of Staff and District Director
\nWilliam Dougherty, Legislative and Budget Director
\nJessica Rutkowski, Constituent Services Liaison
\nMuhammad Hodzic, Constituent Services Liaison
\nBenjamin Geremia, Constituent Services Liaison
\nBernard Chow, Constituent Services Liaison
\nCharles Vavruska, Education Director and Constituent Services Liaison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council Member Phil Wong (left) with former Council Member Robert Holden (right). Photo by Ramy Mahmoud As of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[43198,310,9,24,63,8430,122,124,123,18410],"class_list":["post-91160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-council-member-phil-wong","tag-daily-newsletter","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-phil-wong","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-robert-holden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}