Old Westbury trustee race approaches Round 2

Bill San Antonio

A runoff election will take place Tuesday to decide the Old Westbury trustee race between incumbent Andrew Weinberg and challenger Leslie Fastenberg.

Voting will be open from noon to 9 p.m. at Old Westbury’s village hall, located at 1 Store Hill Road. 

Both Weinberg and Fastenberg’s names will appear on an electronic ballot, with Fastenberg being listed first following a drawing conducted during an Aug.12 board of trustees meeting. 

Absentee ballots will also be available for inclusion in the election.

Fastenberg was one of three trustee candidates to seek election by a write-in campaign that referred to itself as the “New Voice of Old Westbury.”

The other two candidates, Cory Baker and Marina Chimerine, unseated incumbent trustees Harvey Simpson and Christopher Sauvigne, respectively, in an under-the-radar campaign promoted on Facebook.

Baker was elected to a four-year term, while Chimerine will serve for one year in completing the term of Sauvigne, who was appointed to the board last year.

The winner of Weinberg and Fastenberg’s race will serve a four-year term.

Weinberg initially defeated Fastenberg by three votes, but Fastenberg filed for a recount with the Nassau County Board of Elections after she said she was informed that several voters faced difficulty in casting ballots.

Upon various recounts, Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Arthur Diamond ruled in early August that Weinberg and Fastenberg were tied and that the election board would be given jurisdiction in deciding a winner.

Diamond also determined that the village should not have accepted a July 17 oath of office filing by Weinberg, because the race’s outcome was still being reviewed.

Weinberg’s representatives had argued that the court did not have jurisdiction because he had already taken office and began participating as a member of the village board, which held its first public meeting following the election on July 20.

Baker and Chimerine did not participate in the July 20 meeting, though they have been recognized as trustees on the village’s website and official communications.

Weinberg had been represented in court by Garden City attorney Steve Schlesinger, a partner at the firm Jaspan Schlesinger LLP who heads its litigation and appellate practice groups.

Fastenberg’s attorneys are Steve Martir and Ken Gray of the Mineola firm Bee Ready Fishbein Hatter & Donovan LLP. 

During the campaign, the New Voice of Old Westbury candidates emphasized the need for improved communication in seeking election.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Marina Chimerine’s last name as ‘Chamerine.’ We regret the error.

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