The choices voters make will affect the way the village looks, the way laws are enacted, and issues that are foremost on residents' minds, like taxes, parking and development.
The five-member board now comprises Home Rule Party Mayor Eugene Murray, Residents' Voice Party Trustees Andrew Karamouzis, Suzanne Sullivan and Jeanne Mulry, and Home Rule Trustee Wayne Lipton. Murray and Lipton are not running for re-election. Sullivan, meanwhile, is hoping to be re-elected to the seat she has occupied for the past year.
The Concerned Citizens Party is also entering the fray, with former two-term Trustee Mary Bossart running for mayor, and Chuck Joyce and David Krasula candidates for trustee.
Karamouzis is also in the race for mayor, and fellow Residents' Voice Party member Ralph Bumbaca is running for trustee.
So the stage is set: Bossart (Concerned Citizens) vs. Karamouzis (Residents' Voice) for mayor. Sullivan and Bumbaca of Residents' Voice running against Joyce and Krasula of Concerned Citizens for trustee. If Karamouzis wins, he will appoint his own trustee replacement. If he loses, he remains a trustee.
We enthusiastically endorse the Concerned Citizens slate for both mayor and the trustee seats. We believe that Bossart's eight years as a trustee, her work on the Centennial Committee and the Zoning Board of Appeals make her a quality candidate for mayor, as does her knowledge of and dedication to Rockville Centre.
Joyce boasts years of service in the village fire department as well as a solid background as a department director for Nassau County's Child Support Enforcement Department, a position from which he recently retired, leaving him available to devote his full energy to the job of trustee.
Krasula's years in federal law enforcement, and his work as the department head who dealt with all personnel and budget matters for an organization with more than 1,400 members, are superb credentials. We also like his years of experience on the Citizens' Budget Advisory Committee, the RVC School District Bond Committee and the Rockville Centre Soccer Club.
Bossart, Joyce and Krasula will bring valuable - and complementary - experience to the board. They are obviously not pushovers; each has demonstrated the ability to think independently and also to compromise when necessary. All three have tackled difficult situations and adversaries in their successful careers.
After two years of watching contentious and dysfunctional village trustee meetings that often produced nothing much more than rancor, we feel that a new team on the board will help quell tensions and get Rockville Centre back on track with tough, constructive and forward-thinking leadership. The Concerned Citizens candidates will be an effective counterpoint to the Residents' Voice trustees remaining on the board. There are in fact many points of agreement in the two parties' platforms that will enable village government to respond to the concerns residents have voiced during this election season.
With that said, we encourage voters to consider another issue when making their choices: one-party rule. The village faces the very real possibility of a Residents' Voice slate win and a single-party village board. That is something even Mulry, quoted in the June 2, 2005, issue of the Herald, when she was running for a trustee's seat, said is not necessarily in the best interests of the village.
If there were greater evidence of diversity of thought among Residents' Voice candidates, and the expectation that they might vote independently (which hasn't been demonstrated by their voting record), we wouldn't be as concerned about this issue. But when does unanimity cross the line into monolithic thinking? And when does legitimate disagreement between two groups rise to a level of nastiness that is unconstructive? The success of the next village board very much depends on the answers to these questions.
Political tension can be useful and constructive. Unanimity should be a hard-won product of that tension, however; not a given before the process even begins. A board balanced by the Concerned Citizens slate of Bossart, Joyce and Krasula and the two incumbent Residents' Voice trustees would be the right choice for Rockville Centre.
Vote Row B - Bossart, Joyce and Krasula - on Tuesday.
