Candidates face off

Voice and Unity Party candidates vying for the mayoralty and two seats on the Island Park Board of Trustees met at the Francis X. Hegarty Elementary School’s cafeteria on March 3 for a public forum and debate.

Laura Hassett and Columbia Ciccimarro, candidates running on the Voice Party line, joined incumbent Joe Annarella and newcomer Matt Paccione, of the Unity Party, for the evening’s opening debate. The four candidates, who are running for the seats in an at-large election, addressed a number of major concerns facing the village, as volunteers from the Island Park Civic Association and the League of Women Voters presented them with questions submitted by members of the audience.

The topics were familiar to everyone in the room, with government transparency and patronage, infrastructure and revitalization, storm mitigation and improvements to the business district taking center stage. In tackling transparency issues, Hassett and Ciccimarro strongly suggested taking a proactive approach to change what Ciccimarro described as a culture of entitlement and privilege in Island Park’s government, and creating an open dialogue between village officials and residents by providing documentation of governmental decisions, including itemized budgets.

For their part, Annarella and Paccione maintained that transparency is not an issue in Island Park, with Annarella stressing that public records are available to anyone who asks. And Paccione, who later elaborated, summed up his attitude toward transparency in two words: “Call me.”

Questions about infrastructure, too, elicited very different responses. In discussing the village’s Masone and Little beaches and its failing drainage system, Annarella and Paccione said that the Unity Party has been noting flood patterns and other factors, and would work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to bring much-needed repairs to beach bulkheads and the sewer system.

Hassett rejected that answer. “I’ve been hearing about the Army Corps of Engineers for 12 years,” she said. “We cannot hang onto empty promises anymore.”