Great Neck Estates candidates focus on service

Adam Lidgett

Sidney Krugman’s tenure as Great Neck Estates trustee has come full circle.

Krugman, who first ran for village trustee more than 20 years ago, said one of his first projects as trustee was helping to fix the bad road conditions in the village.

Now two decades later, he is helping to fix those same roads.

“Coming up is a significant road rehab project,” Krugman said. “I’m trying to keep my fingers on all the developments in the village on keeping village residents’ interests protected.”

Krugman, along with Great Neck Estates Mayor David Fox and Deputy Mayor William Warner, is running for re-election in the March 18 election. All three are running unopposed. Voting will take place from 12 p.m. until 9 p.m. March 18 at Great Neck Estates Village Hall, located at 4 Gateway Drive.

The idea to run for trustee all those years ago came to Krugman from Arthur Winston, who was with the village civic association at the time.

“It was an interesting story,” Krugman said. “Winston basically had convinced me in a village this small one person can make a difference in what’s going on.”

Krugman said his career as a real estate developer, from which he is retired, has helped him serve as the director of special projects in the village. He said he will continue to serve as director of special projects as long as he can.

“I remember one of my very first speeches as a candidate in a contested election,” Krugman said. “I said I had no political agenda and I would follow my conscience on each particular issue as it came up in village. I’ve adhered to that as trustee.”

But of all the things in the village he enjoys the most, Krugman said, he still enjoys the pool and sitting by the shoreline in the summer.

Warner, who has been on the Great Neck Estates Board of Trustees since 2001, said he became involved in the village years in 1996, when he founded the village’s Day Camp in the Park, a summer camp that offers activities such as swimming, tennis lessons and soccer to residents of Great Neck Estates.

“A few years after getting [the camp] going I thought that I could give more,” Warner, a dentist, said. “I was very involved in the parks, and when I got elected I became park commissioner.”

Warner said he’s still active in sports and the park facilities, even though he is now the public works commissioner.

Besides spending time as deputy mayor, Warner said he is involved in youth basketball, assistant coaching the Great Neck South High basketball team.

Warner said most of all, being a trustee means being a steward of the village and its people.

“As a trustee you try to maintain the quality of life in the village and maintain infrastructure,” Warner said. “In doing all that we try to keep tax increases as low as possible.”

Warner said his village is unique in that it is very self-sufficient – it has its own police force and parks, as opposed to many other villages that use Nassau County Police and the Great Neck Park District facilities.

“We love the fact that we’re self-sufficient for most part,” Warner said. “We do work with Plaza when projects come up to get input if it will affect them.”

Warner said even though the village has remained self-sufficient for a long time, the best part about Great Neck Estates is the setting.

“It’s on the water, it has a huge field in the middle of it, we have tennis courts a beautiful pool setting,” Warner said. “It has one of the best parks I’ve been to in my entire life.”

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