As they go from door to door seeking support from their neighbors in the election for East Williston Village Board, the Community Party candidates say they are consistently encountering two issues at the top of most voters’ lists: rising taxes and restless teenagers.
“The biggest concern that we’ve heard is about the budget problems with New York State and the grant money that wasn’t delivered,” said Bobby Shannon, making his first run for village trustee. “The other concern I keep hearing is about the children out on the Village Green.”
Shannon, one of three Community Party candidates in the race, said he and his running mates are interested in developing ideas for safe activities for teens on the East Williston Village Green, such as a band night where local musicians might perform for free.
“We need a soft hand,” Shannon said. “You can’t have a heavy hand because they’ll just do what kids do. But at the same time, you can’t encourage situations where the village incurs liability.”
Issues about teenagers congregating on the Village Green or in the nearby Long Island Rail Road station plaza became the focal point of a series of village board meetings last summer and fall.
The independent candidate in the race for a trustee seat, Caroline DeBenedittis, said the primary concern among residents she has spoken to is the election process itself.
“The only concern some residents have brought up to me is the voting,” she said. “They are under the impression that they must vote the whole party ticket.”
DeBenedittis, who has a high profile in the village as chairperson of the East Williston Recreation Committee for the past seven years, was an unanticipated late entrant into the race.
Her primary focus is on developing new recreation programs for teenagers and improving the timeliness of information the village provides to the residents. DeBenedittis helped to create game and movie nights at the East Williston Village Hall, a program that she notes has met with middling success among village teens.
She has said she believes in “transparency in village government and acting as a steward for the residents, ensuring fiscal responsibility and accountability.”
Deputy Mayor James Daw Jr. proposed several local laws to curb the activities of teens around the Village Green, including one that would have prompted a summons for sitting on the war memorial. Ultimately, only one of Daw’s proposed statutes was enacted: a prohibition against skate boarders riding on village property, which was intended to prevent them from defacing wrought iron railings around the new East Williston Village Hall.
But residents at the meetings also criticized the behavior of police officers from the Nassau County Police Department’s 3rd Precinct. Residents said police officers were rousting their children from the train plaza for no reason and frequently using profane language in the process of ordering them to disperse.
“The treatment of teens is an issue,” said Bonnie Parente, a candidate for trustee also running on the Community Party ticket. “I am very aware that the issue needs to be further addressed. It’s not an issue that can be ignored.”
Parente, an attorney with the New York Racing Association, said there needs to be “significant improvements” on how the situation between teenagers and police officers is addressed in the future. She said she had some ideas she was ready to propose when she was in a position to do so, but declined to enumerate them.
“I find that there as many people who feel one way as do feel another,” she said. “There are very divergent opinions on this topic. It will be difficult to find a middle ground and difficult, if not impossible, to please everyone.”
David Tanner, who is running unopposed for mayor on the Community Party ticket, said he didn’t see a great deal of concern among residents about the issues that seemed to spark emotional exchanges at the village board meetings last year. However, he did indicate that he was hearing divergent opinions about the situation.
“There are quite a few residents looking to provide services to the kids when they’re out of the house for the evening and there’s also a significant group of residents who think the kids shouldn’t be hanging out,” Tanner said.
He said he believes that the primary concerns of residents in the village are predominantly financial ones.
“There are two issues,” he said. “People are really concerned about high taxes and the challenge of doing more with less.”
Tanner has touted his own record in working to improve the village’s financial profile in his 13 years of service as a trustee, noting that Moody’s had given village bonds an “A” rating when he was first on the board, while Standard & Poor’s recently fated the bonds at “AA+.”
Tanner ran for mayor after East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi decided not to seek another term in office. Daw also decided not to run and Tanner’s term as trustee was up, providing two open seats Shannon, Parente and DeBenedittis to seek.
