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Overcast Grasso announces election bid
So far unchallenged for trustee seat
Valley Stream’s United Community Party introduced the newest village board member, Vincent Grasso, to a crowd of more than 100 at the American Legion hall last Sunday.
Grasso, who was appointed by Mayor Ed Cahill last month to fill the seat of the late Guido Cirenza, will run in a special election in March. So far, no one has challenged him, but, “I know I’m up for it,” Grasso said.
The winner of the March 16 election will serve the remaining year of Cirenza’s term. His seat, along with that of trustee Joanne Antun, Cahill and Village Justice Bob Bogle are up for full four-year terms in March of 2011.
Grasso, director of the Nassau County Bridge Authority, served in Iraq in 2006 and is an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserves. In the past he has run unsuccessfully for Hempstead town board, New York state Assembly and mostly recently Nassau County Legislature. But he said it worked out for the best in being selected to serve on the village board. “It really is a privilege to join them,” he said of his fellow trustees.
In 1998, Grasso moved to the village when he and his wife Mary purchased the house her father grew up in — and across the street from where her mother was raised. They have a daughter, Isabella, 7.
Hempstead Town Councilman Jim Darcy, a former mayor of Valley Stream, discussed the history of the United Community Party. It was formed in 1995 to represent all geographical areas and philosophical views of the village. “We wanted to make sure that each and every segment of the community that is Valley Stream was represented in the administration,” Darcy said.
The founders of the party, he said, didn’t want partisan politics to get in the way of village business. The five-member board consists of two Democrats, two Republicans and one conservative.
Cahill said he chose Grasso to serve on the village board because he would work toward the same goal — doing right by the citizens of Valley Stream. “We’re here to work for the village,” Cahill said. “We can’t get any closer to the people than local government.”
