Village of Mineola voters re-elected incumbent trustees Paul Pereira and Paul Cusato on Tuesday, signaling their approval of the residential developments the Village Board has touted as a boon to Mineola.
New Line Party candidate Pereira received 911 votes and Cusato 832 on the Hometown Party line. Challengers and former village mayors John Colbert of the Save Our Suburb Party and Larry Werther of the Mineola My Home Party respectively received 733 votes and 632 votes.
The incumbents’ win proved their message of smart growth and financial responsibility overcame the “scare tactics” the challengers and their supporters used, Pereira and Cusato said.
“This demonstrated that the people of Mineola were not going to be tricked into finding an issue or a red herring when there wasn’t one,” Pereira said.
The election became a referendum on the four residential projects containing a total of 1,075 apartments the Village Board has approved since 2008 as part of its Master Plan for village development.
As Cusato and Pereira touted the developments’ economic and demographic benefits, Colbert and Werther argued the projects would strain village resources, exacerbate parking and traffic problems, increase residents’ tax burden and detract from Mineola’s suburban quality of life.
Colbert said Tuesday night he wanted to give residents a choice in the election, and he called for the village to move forward now that they have chosen.
“Now it’s time for unity and for them to get on in running this village, and hopefully they will listen to the people,” he said. “But the people have spoken that they want development.”
Werther, though, said residents gave the Village Board the latitude to “do whatever the hell they want” by re-electing Cusato and Pereira, and failed to realize how much money the projects could have saved them were they fully taxed.
“This is obviously a mandate for the board to create whatever monstrosities they want,” he said. “Obviously people don’t care about their taxes.”
To Pereira, the election was more a referendum on the leadership the Village Board has provided and the direction in which it’s taken Mineola than on the development projects themselves.
Over the course of the race, he and Cusato maintained the board has taken a measured approach to development and kept it from infringing on the village’s single-family neighborhoods.
The buildings’ development incentive bonus and host community benefit payments will add millions of dollars to village coffers, they have said, money the village has used and will use to pay for capital projects rather than passing that burden on to taxpayers.
The village is now waiting to see how the four projects pan out before considering or approving any more, Pereira said Tuesday night.
“This development is good, it’s smart,” he said. “However, nothing changes — we’re still going to take a break, take a breather, assess what we have in the pipeline and take a look at it as time goes on.”
Colbert and Werther heavily criticized the property tax breaks three of the four projects received from the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency in the form of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreements.
The challengers often argued the PILOTs unfairly benefitted already wealthy developers while residents, particularly young families and seniors, struggle with high property taxes.
Werther maintained that Tuesday night, saying leaving the developments on the tax rolls could have given residents relief on their school tax bills.
“Why should I subsidize the Lalezarians?” he said, referring to the New Hyde Park-based developer of the 315-unit building at 250 Old Country Road and the controversial 266-unit Village Green at 199 Second St. “… The board is giving it to them and the residents of our village told them that’s okay.”
While Pereira has said the village will ultimately get more revenue through the projects’ direct payments than if they were fully taxed, Colbert and Werther said the property taxes would have brought more money.
While the candidates’ public exchanges were largely free of mudslinging, comments from them and their supporters were more heated on social media and in letters to the Williston Times.
“There’s a lot of bad stuff going on over the past month-and-a-half that I just didn’t agree with,” Cusato said.
Colbert said the candidates ran a “clean campaign,” and Werther said he and Colbert “had our hearts in the right place.”
Cusato said he was surprised Werther got as many votes as he did, saying some of his political statements may have increased his turnout.
“These things resonated with a lot of people,” said Werther, who has often compared Mineola’s apartment buildings to LeFrak City in Queens. “A lot of people moved out of Queens because they wanted to be here.”
Cusato and Pereira will be the first trustees to serve four-year terms since the Village Board lengthened terms from two years in 2013. They will be paid $14,500 annually.
