One last round with retiring Queens Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato

Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato speaks at her final Rockaway beach opening before her retirement. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

Every year, immediately following the annual Rockaway beach opening, Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato makes a pilgrimage.

Once speeches are made, hands are shaken and the peninsula’s beaches are ceremonially declared open, the lifelong Rockaway resident takes a trip to Connelly’s, a locally famous, seasonal watering hole known for their frozen pina coladas and pink lemonades.

Like the beaches, Connelly’s opens every year on Memorial Day weekend. For many Rockaway residents, its doors opening herald the summer season.

“Connolly's is a very Rockaway thing,” Pheffer Amato told the Eagle sitting on the patio of the Beach 95th Street bar.

Pheffer Amato always invites her fellow electeds, Rockaway locals and Parks Department employees to join her in her Connelly’s tradition during her remarks at the beach’s opening each year.

“We kind of made it a team bonding moment, we all come down and have a drink” she said. “We're here at 1 o’clock, an hour after opening, and I think half the bar is my constituents and my neighbors in my building.”

This year marked the last time Pheffer Amato will lead a crew over to the bar as an elected official. She plans to retire at the end of the year after serving in the Assembly seat once held by her mother for the past decade.

With a cherry-topped pink lemonade frozen in hand, the retiring legislator greeted constituents already enjoying their first Connelly’s trip of the summer, along with members of her staff and others happy to follow her from the beach opening to the basement bar.

In between myriad greetings and cheers with frozen drinks, Pheffer Amato talked to the Eagle about her years in public office, her surprise decision to retire and what might come next for the local official.

The 60-year-old state lawmaker was elected to the 23rd Assembly District in 2016, following in the footsteps of her mother, current Queens County Clerk Audrey Pheffer, who represented the district in Albany for more than two decades.

In the years that followed, she managed to stave off a few tight general election challenges with a brand of retail politics well-suited for the isolated but close-knit Rockaway peninsula.

“We are a small town, and I'm a member of that town,” she said. “I'm part of that fabric. When I walk into my local bar, I walk into my favorite deli, I am talking to people that I know, or I know their kid, they know my parents, I know their cousin.”

More than a piece of legislation, Pheffer Amato said she’s most proud of her work helping her neighbors solve their issues. The lawmaker claims to have responded to 11,000 constituent cases during her nearly 10 years in office.

“It's always about the constituents,” she added.

Retiring Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato enjoys a drink at Connelly’s in Rockaway following the annual beach opening. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach

The lawmaker announced her retirement in November, much to the surprise of her constituents, local Democratic district leaders and her elected colleagues the Eagle spoke to at the time.

“I hit my 60th birthday this year, and I just think I was reflecting, and it felt like the right time,” she said.

Pheffer Amato is one of three longtime Queens lawmakers who will be retiring at the end of the year, though she differs from the other two.

Congressmember Nydia Velázquez and Senate Minority Leader Michael Gianaris are both leaving far more left-leaning districts, and both were early supporters of Mayor Zohran Mamdani last year.

The Rockaway elected is not a fan of the current mayor, and did not endorse him. She said she thinks of her far-flung 23rd District – among the most southern lying in the state – as a purple district, which she said she is proud of.

“This district is working class, but we have very good social values,” she said. “At the same time, we're getting very conservative. Our protection of our tax dollars, our home ownership, of what we view our country, of immigration – we're changing our views.”

“I do still see that we are a majority in the Democratic register, but I think we're painfully purple,” she added.

Also unlike Velázquez, whose chosen successor lost his primary, and Gianaris, who did not endorse in the race to replace him, Pheffer Amato’s pick, Pesach Osina, won his primary.

Osina, a longtime political staffer who Pheffer Amato endorsed along with the rest of the Queens Democratic Party, defeated local attorney Mike Scala in June by 22 points. Osina won the district almost entirely through support from his base, the Orthodox Jewish community in Far Rockaway, while losing all but four of the district’s other 20 precincts.

Osina will face retired Army veteran Thomas Sullivan, a Republican, in November.

However, Scala will remain on the ballot as a third-party candidate, which could make what is already expected to be a close race between Osina and Sullivan even closer.

In May, Pheffer Amato bragged about her support for Osina.

“I think he is the most qualified candidate for this position,” she said. “He is a people person, and in this district, you must be a people person. You must have relationships already, and he really has deep relationships already with many city agencies, city electeds. He really is walking in with a better phone book than I had walking in.”

She also had words for Sullivan, who ran against her twice, and almost unseated her 2022.

“The New York State Assembly has majority rule,” she said. “The majority works on a budget, we craft the budget, we talk about the budget, we get capital money to spend in our district, we get expensive money to spend in our districts. So if someone really loves their community and they're a Republican in the New York State Assembly…then they shouldn't run for office because that person will get nothing.”

Should Osina win, he will have the benefit of his predecessor’s guidance, just as Pheffer Amato did.

One of her successors was her mother, and when Pheffer Amato was elected, the duo became the first mother and daughter to be elected to the same Assembly seat.

“I’ve always leaned on my mom,” she said. “She was able to talk to me about politics, people. I'm a little bit more of a hothead. I'll tell you to go f– yourself, then I'll apologize later.”

While both of Pheffer Amato’s predecessors in the 23rd District left office with their next job lined up –her mother resigned her seat to become the county clerk, and her immediate successor Phil Goldfeder, stepped aside for a job in the financial industry – she isn’t quite sure where she’ll land.

“I've had a lot of coffee with people,” she said.

As she’s done for much of her life, she turned to her mother for advice.

“I actually asked my mom that question: ‘How do you end?’” she said. “I remember when she was winding down from this place to go to the next, and the happiness she found in finding a different routine in life, a different priority. I lean on her just to understand that process.”

While Pheffer Amato’s next move is less than clear, and the election to succeed her is even more uncertain, the life-long Rockaway resident said she wants to leave while she still has energy to continue the work – and while there is still beach sand between her toes.

“People say you shouldn't retire,” she said. “But you should choose, and I wanted to choose when I leave.”