Our Views: Election proves turnout matters

The Island Now

If there was anyone out there who still thought turning out to vote was not important, the results of last week’s referendum on a proposed Great Neck School District capital bond should put the argument to rest.

In February, Great Neck School District voters — who include residents from all of Great Neck and the northern part of New Hyde Park — narrowly defeated an $85.9 million bond proposal 1,677 to 1,564.

Last week, less than four months later, a proposed $68.3 million bond received 1,925 no votes — 248 more than in February.

But the bond passed by 4,374 votes as 6,299 cast their votes in favor in an election that saw 8,379 residents vote. That’s 5,133 more people than who voted in February. And voters also approved a $223.3 million school budget for the 2017-18 school year by an even greater margin 6,772 to 1,607.

It is true that the school board shaved more than $17 million off the bond proposal in February.

But that does not explain a nearly three-fold increase in turnout.

A more likely explanation is that many school district voters who supported capital improvements got complacent and did not think their votes would be needed in February. Lesson learned. Elections do have consequences.

This is a phenomenon seen nationally on a regular basis among Democrats who vote in much greater numbers in years in which there is a Presidential election than in off-year races.

It is a phenomenon that helps explain why Republicans control both houses of Congress as well as a large majority of state legislatures and governors’ mansions.

And even in this year’s presidential race, turnout was a large factor with Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton made possible by just a 71,000 vote edge in Pennsylvannia, Michigan and Wisconsin. Lack of enthusiasm for Clinton among Democrats and Independents cost her votes. Think that hasn’t made a difference?

Turnout for the Great Neck bond and budget was further fueled by, until the last week or so, a heated and sometimes divisive race for two open board seats centered on concerns that two of the candidates, who had one or more children attending private religious schools, would be less supportive of district spending.

Some in the community raised concerns would follow in the footsteps of Lawrence, a South Shore community in which Orthodox Jews whose children attended private religious schools gained a majority on the school board and many in the community saw changes in school policy they opposed.

Two candidates withdrew from a race for one of the open seats, with one of the candidates saying he did not want to cut into the vote totals of another “pro-public education” candidate.

But in a heartening message to district voters, one of the two candidates whose children attended private religious schools, Ilya Aronovich, also withdrew from the race, saying he was concerned by the divisiveness of the race.

“We are neighbors, we are friends, we are Great Neck. No change on the board is worth the ill will and vitriol being slung,” Aronovich said. “A united community with a faulty board is preferable to a fractured community with a perfect board.”

We would be much better off as a nation if elected officials in Washington showed as much concern with uniting Americans as Aronovich did.

The election of the two “pro-public education” candidates — Jeffrey Shi and Rebecca Sassouni — also featured a first for the Great Neck School District: the election of the first Asian-American school board member .

The election of Shi, who defeated Nikolas Kron 6,055 to 1908, also sent a positive message that at least in the Great Neck school district, commitment to quality public education was more important than a candidate’s ethnicity.

And Shi returned the favor.

“I’m for all people,” Shi said when asked about his election.  “I’m for Jewish people, I’m for Chinese people, I’m for Asian people, because this public school is for all people, so I could care less [that I’m the first Asian-American on the board] because I’m just a working parent at the end of the day and just want to make sure my kid and all the kids in my community receive the right amount of education and prepare them to be very successful.”

Elections at all levels of government matter. The quality of candidates matter.

That’s a lesson the Great Neck school district can be proud to have taught.

Share this Article