By:Jerry Burke
With voter turnout slightly higher than last year, voters picked Valley Stream over Elmont's library by a margin of alomst 3-to-2 last Thursday. Waldinger received 296 votes, compared with Elmont's 208 and Malverne's three. Four residents voted against all contracts. The North Valley Stream district includes residents of Elmont and Franklin Square.
"The vote really validates the fact that people in the area wanted library service," said Town Councilman James Darcy. Darcy supported the push to restore library service to the unserved community at the local level, while Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and assemblymen Tom Alfano and Bob Barra helped pass the legislation necessary for a vote.
Prior to last week's vote, Marshall Botwinick, Waldinger's director, said that nearly 1,400 residents of the North Valley Stream district had signed up for a library card. "We are more than happy to welcome them again," Botwinick said. "We will be renewing their cards and we hope to be signing even more people up."
In a separate vote, also held Sept. 9, residents of the year-old East Franklin Square library district, which includes parts of Malverne and Valley Stream, voted to contract with the Elmont Public Library for two years by a 2-to-1 margin.
Elmont received 145 votes to Waldinger's 70. Malverne received 18 votes, while 15 residents voted against having a contract at all. While absentee ballots had not yet been added to the tally as of Monday afternoon, officials said there were not enough of them to alter the preliminary results.
"We are very pleased that the voters of the East Franklin Square library district choose to retain us as their library," said Elmont Library Director Janice Schoen. "Every month in the past year, we have received more and more applications from the district, and look forward to having more sign up in the future."
Last year, both districts voted along the same lines for one-year contracts, which expire on Dec. 31. Darcy said the original contracts were limited to one year so that elected officials at the town and state levels could re-examine the district's boundaries.
Even though this year's vote approved two-year contracts, Darcy said that he and the state legislators would over that time re-examine the possibility of splitting the North Valley Stream district, explaining that there are indications that residents north of the Southern State Parkway prefer Elmont, while residents south of the parkway prefer the Waldinger library.
"We are committed to ensuring that residents continue to enjoy all of the educational, cultural and social benefits that go along with full library service," said Darcy, noting that the past year has seen a very positive response from those previously not served by a library.
The contract will cost East Franklin Square residents $190,135 or $4.32 per $100 of assessed value, even though Waldinger's bid was roughly $11,000 less overall. North Valley Stream's contract with Waldinger will cost $325,825, or $3.99 per $100 of assesed value, roughly $73,000 less than Elmont's bid and $200,000 less than Malverne's.
Both successful bids will include the $10,000 cost of the special election.
The Waldinger Library has already been putting the money to good use. The money it received from the Mill Brook library district's three-year contract, which took effect in January 2003, and the money from the current North Valley Stream contract have helped or will help to finance interior renovations at the library. Renovations already complete include a new roof, and being planned are carpeting to decrease the noise level, reconfiguration of the adult and children's rooms, including a storytime and crafts section in the children's room, reconfiguring of office space, and a fresh coat of paint.
With the vote settled, residents in both districts can apply for cards at their current libraries if they haven't already done so. With the cards, they can access their chosen library's entire collection and borrow from any library in the Nassau Library System, with minor limitations at some locations.
Currently, under New York state law, residents of districts not served by a library use state-mandated access cards that allow them limited use at local libraries. A previous arrangement had allowed unserved residents to purchase library cards, an arrangement ruled illegal by the New York State Board of Regents two years ago.
Results are subject to recanvass, absentee and affidavit ballots.
Nicole Falco contributed to this story.
