Challengers blast Munsey Park old guard

Bill San Antonio

Four of the five Manhasset villages have a mayor up for election this month. Only in Munsey Park, however, is there currently a contested race.

For the first time in his 17-year tenure, the incumbent mayor, Harry Nicolaides of the Village Party, has been challenged for his position by Frank DeMento of the People for a Better Munsey Park ticket. The ticket also includes trustee candidates Sean Haggerty and Patrick Hance, running against incumbents Albert T. Jaronczyk and Sheila A. Brennan.

“Clearly, this election is different from the previous elections as it is the first one that I am being challenged,” Nicolaides said in an e-mail. “I have a responsibility to my residents to get out there and share our accomplishments and competence. I have never expected a thank you for my efforts. This is not why you volunteer for this job.”

The People for a Better Munsey Park candidates cited the mayor’s longstanding, unopposed tenure as one of the reasons they want to replace him and his trustees in office. 

“I don’t think you should have a mayor for 17 years, off 2-year terms, going on potentially 19 years now. That’s not democracy,” Haggerty said. “You don’t get anything done that way. He’s not willing to listen to people to discuss what they want. You don’t get more participation in government that way, and you want more participation, not less.”

Haggerty said Nicolaides’ tenure as village mayor has given him power that extends beyond the parameters of the village’s electoral process through what he feels is an unfair appointment process to positions on the board and not a vote among the trustees.

“The way it is now, you’d have to become one of the mayor’s lackeys by working for him for five years and if he thinks you did a good job, he’ll appoint you to the board of  trustees,” Haggerty said.

Nicolaides said he was surprised his challengers are running for office, claiming they do not even attend village board meetings and therefore lack the village service experience needed to govern effectively.

“Every one of our trustees has years of experience directly serving our village in various capacities. My opponents have none,” Nicolaides said. “I have not seen them at board meetings and with the exception of Mr. Haggerty, who advocated for a stop sign and has not shown up since. That was a few years ago.”

DeMento, Haggerty and Hance said they attend meetings regularly, are active in the community through various other organizations, and have professional experience in their daytime careers that they think would translate well to the village government. 

Haggerty has worked in financial services for 18 years in institutional equity sales and trading, capital markets and consulting. Hance is a COO of Corporate Lending at Citigroup, and DeMento is a vice president and counsel at XL Reinsurance America and serves on the board of directors for ROM Reinsurance Management Co., Inc. and the Association of Insurance and Reinsurance run-off companies.

The trio said they met as a result of their wives’ work on the Munsey Park Women’s Association, which plans fundraisers for village beautification projects as well as fundraising and other social events for neighbors to meet each other. 

The more they talked, according to Haggerty, the more they realized the similarities in their concerns with the village board’s performance, ultimately giving them the confidence to unite under a ticket and run for office. 

“The three of us have lived in the village, dealt with doing business in the village, and we feel the current board is a little bit out of touch and not serving the village as best as they can,” Hance said. “Munsey Park is a small, incorporated village, which means we pay village taxes in addition to Town of North Hempstead taxes because we feel the village can provide the same services the town does but do them even better. For a resident to get something done in the village, it is much harder than it needs to be.”

The primary concern the People for a Better Munsey Park is to make village politics between the board and village residents more transparent, the candidates said. 

Haggerty said that in his 12 years as a Munsey Park resident, he’s noticed that neighbors have become increasingly disinterested in village board politics because the village board has been “frustrating to deal with,” particularly with complicated processes for acquiring building and tree removal permits.

“The feedback has been that it has become arduous to deal with the village and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Haggerty said. “I don’t think people have had positive interaction with the village and it seems like a very hard place to be involved with.”

DeMento, a Munsey Park resident since 2005, said that when he moved into his Trumbull Road house, one he called “a fixer-upper,” he had trouble acquiring permits and approval from the village to begin his building projects. Many of the residents he’s spoken to, he said, feel the same way.

“Everybody’s really frustrated with the process, and as a result the really unfortunate trend is that people have just stopped trying to have work done on their houses,” DeMento said.

DeMento, Haggerty and Hance each cited the lack of a streamlined process for people to find application forms, fees and regulations on the village’s web site, which they both claim would be a primary goal of their agenda if elected. 

“The codebook is hundreds of pages long, it’s really complicated to read and is not user-friendly,” DeMento said. “Our main thing is not to get rid of the village code or the zoning process, because these things do serve a purpose, but make it more user-friendly, make it more understandable.”

“Our building inspector is very accessible to our residents and our plan reviews are very timely,” Nicolaides said. “All our forms, as well as our codes, are available online on our Web site. I have witnessed on may occasions, our staff sitting patiently preparing an application with a resident.”

DeMento also said the permit processes don’t change in the event of an emergency, such as Hurricane Sandy, in which residents would not have the time to wait for permits applications to pass and work to be planned. Some Munsey Park residents, according to the challengers, became so frustrated by the process that they pulled trees off their homes without following proper village protocol.

“When people went about taking care of the work that needed to be done on their houses after Hurricane Sandy, they ran into the same permit problems as they typically do,” DeMento said. “They need work done quickly, they can’t just have a tree sitting in the living room next to them.”

Nicolaides said he wonders why his challengers haven’t brought their concerns to the village board.

“Frankly, I am very surprised that not one of our opponents, in this election, has approached me or the village board to offer their services to their community, nor have they brought suggestions or ideas for improving the way the village is run,” Nicolaides said. “If they have lived here as long as they say, isn’t it a disservice to our village that they have not made any attempt to offer anything? Contrary to their representations, they have not come to our board meetings, and their only involvement has been as applicants for permits or approvals for their own benefit. Odd, isn’t it?”

Jaronczyk said in an e-mail that the accusation of being “out of touch” is an unfounded political ploy made close to election time. 

“You may as well say we dislike mom and apple pie,” he said. “I have lived and raised a family in the village for the past 33 years. I have happily served the village community for the last 14 of those years, therefore I personally have no excuse for being out of touch with my fellow residents. That being said, I’m also a  short timer on the board. Each board member that I have served with over the years has made themselves available to participate in the process of Village governance in response to the wishes of our residents.”

Brennan also disagreed that the board is “out of touch.”

“The village continues to respond to the needs of residents by reassessing and rewriting local laws such as those regarding generators and placement of air conditioning units as a direct response to residents,” Brennan said in an email. “Furthermore, the village continues to expand communications via printed newsletters, frequent emails and a comprehensive Web site that includes the full village code and all applications for permits.”

If elected, the People for a Better Munsey Park candidates said they would explore placing term limits on village board members and that a regularly changing board would increase the engagement of residents.

Nicolaides said he thinks multiple terms for board officials is necessary to build and maintain relationships with the organizations with which the village works throughout the Town of North Hempstead and across Long Island.

“Our residents will let us know when we shouldn’t serve anymore,” Nicolaides said. “There is a tremendous amount of time that needs to be effective in these positions. If one cannot devote the time to provide the leadership required, they should step down. There is no substitute for experience that can only be gained by doing the job. The access and respect of other elected officials, agencies, and utility companies grows with the tenure that multiple terms provides.”

Jaronczyk said putting term limits on village officials would result in the fulfillment of personal agendas and subpar performance.

“You don’t have a farm system like professional politicians serving in county, state or federal government,” Jaronczyk said. “You have unpaid volunteers that serve the village. As a result you learn the job by doing the job, by having an experienced board mentor and by borrowing from your daytime job experiences.

“Personal agendas would be served by term limits, because once an individual has secured their objective, they move on. The village ultimately suffers the long-term consequences, of short term personal agendas.

If re-elected, Nicolaides and his trustees plan to ensure a positive future for the Munsey Park community, continuing their current work while also re-evaluating the effectiveness of current policies. 

“I would like to see a review of some of our laws and policies to keep them current with our resident needs. In the past few years, we have relaxed some of our zoning ordinances to allow broader options for placing air conditioners, sheds of various sizes that are now allowed without a variance, a generator code that allows these devices to exceed our sound ordinance if properly installed. We have relaxed the standards our tree committee uses to approve the removal of a healthy tree if a new tree is planted in place of the one removed and provided wider driveway limits to accommodate our sport utility vehicles.”

Jaronczyk said the village board will continue to seek solutions to better the overall Munsey Park community. 

“You need to stay informed and put in the time to listen to your constituency and participate in resolving practical.”

Share this Article