Your story on Great Neck village elections contained a monumental error: it said that positions for mayor and trustee in the Village of Great Neck are not salaried.
Not so: indeed, your reporter was either asleep or playing “Angry Birds” on his phone last month when I asked the all Better Government Party Village Board why it would not take steps to reduce the $10,000 annual salary for the mayor and $4,800 salaries for the trustees, which they had the gall to double four years ago after they resumed total control of the village board after defeating an independent mayor.
There was a colloquy between me, the mayor and one of the trustees in which they tried to justify the salaries. No word of this appeared in the paper.
Moreover, a little homework would find that other mayors are eligible for salaries far higher, although at least one takes less.
Meanwhile, the story should also point out that the boards appoint superintendents and village attorneys.
Some, like the Kings Point police chief, rake in more than the county executive. Others, like Stephen G. Limmer, village attorney for Great Neck, Kings Point and counsel to the Water Authority of Great Neck North as well as at least one more village in the Roslyns, rakes in more than President Barack Obama and also gets a $62,500 state pension!
Moreover, boards also designate “official newspapers” to publish their lucrative legal advertising. The Better Government Party mayor took away your designation two years ago and handed it to the other local paper, whose editor is his wife! Not a word in your paper, when there should have been an unrelenting campaign to showcase public officials lining their own pockets!
Most amazing is that the five elected school board trustees, who manage a budget of essentially $200 million, don’t collect a penny.
The mayors and trustees, in general, collect salaries, health insurance, some pension rights and plenty of opportunities to make money in their private businesses.
That’s the Great Neck way and it’s time for it to stop.
David Zielenziger
Great Neck
