ASTORIA – Costa Constantinidis, Astoria’s new City Council member, hosted a reception marking the grand opening of his District Office for friends and constituents.

Constantinides welcomed and thanked the guests but the loudest applause was for his wife Lori and his four year old son Nicholas who enjoyed meeting his dad’s friends as much as they liked making the acquaintance of the polite young man.

State Senator Michael Gianaris attended and also conveyed the good wishes of Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas, whose duties kept her in Albany. When he said “We thank Costa for choosing a place so conveniently located near our offices…we are in the building next door” he reminded the Greek-Americans of their achievement in electing members of the community to office at three levels of government.

Congresswoman Maloney is also next door, “which makes it easy to work as a team. If you are not happy with us you can come here and vice versa,” he said, as the guests who packed the space laughed.

He continued that “we know Costa will do great things because he has already done great things in two months.”

Constantinides has already introduced three bills: 1) to speed up pothole repair – this winter has been a disaster for the city’s streets, 2) to have garbage cans on street corners picked up every day, and 3) and to diversify the city’s fuel sources by using more bio-diesel.

He thanked his staff, who received loud applause, but the loudest followed his declaration “I am voting against winter next year,” as everyone was once again bracing for sub-zero wind chill factors.

Assemblyman Michael G. DenDekker, whose district overlaps with Constantinides, was also present.

One of the guests,  Jason Antos told TNH “Costa is a good guy and  a very dedicated member of the community and we expect great things from him, so it’s very exciting.”

George L. Stamatiades, president of the Central Astoria Local Development Coalition said the worked closely with Peter Vallone when he was on the City Council for 12 years “and we would love to continue that great relationship, which led to things like the concerts in in the park sponsored by the Athens Square Committee. I know Costa will support us too. We are pleased to be here and we wish him all the luck in the world.”

Kelly Lagoudis was “very happy that he was elected. He’s going to do great. We went to his inauguration, which was fantastic. It was a full house.”