Flower Hill Mayor Robert McNamara will not seek re-election to his position this year and will instead run for a trustee position. Deputy Mayor Brian Herrington and Trustee Kate Hirsch have each announced their campaigns for mayor.
Beginning in 2010, McNamara served as a village trustee and later became deputy mayor to then Mayor Elaine Phillips. When Phillips was elected to the state Senate in 2016, McNamara was appointed to take on the role. He won an uncontested re-election bid in 2018.
With Herrington and Hirsch also announcing their own slates of trustee candidates, the election appears to be the village’s first contested one in at least two years.
Herrington, a three-term trustee who was appointed deputy mayor by McNamara in 2017, counts Trustees Randall Rosenbaum and Gary Lewandowski on his slate. Rosenbaum was re-elected in 2018, while Lewandowski first took his seat in 2013. McNamara will also be part of the slate.
Hirsch, a three-year trustee who served on the Ethics Committee prior to her appointment, includes in her slate Jay Silverman, former Board of Trustees president of Temple Beth-Israel and Planning Board member; Jeffrey Greilsheimer, commercial litigation attorney and North Hempstead Community Development Agency vice chair; and Diane Turner, Zoning Board of Appeals trustee and former village Planning Board chair.
McNamara was unavailable for comment as he was taking a vacation, Herrington said at Monday’s Board of Trustees meeting.
The Village of Flower Hill’s election will take place on Wednesday, March 18, from noon to 8 p.m. at Village Hall.
