Floral Park Deputy Mayor Kevin Fitzgerald, who is running uncontested in the March 20 village elections, said he looks forward to continue to serve with the village board.
“There’s a sense of teamwork and openness where if you have an opinion you can freely express it and can have meaningful … discussions regardless of what your opinion is,” Fitzgerald said.
He added that the diverse perspectives on the board help the members work together to serve the residents.
He noted the members range in professional background from Mayor Dominick Longobardi’s position as assistant to the commissioner of sanitation for the Town of Hempstead to Trustee Lynn Pombonyo’s former position as Floral Park-Bellerose school superintendent.
Fitzgerald is an executive director at JPMorgan Chase.
He has served three terms, plus one extra year, since he was appointed in 2011.
He is running as a member of the Citizens Party along with Trustee Archie Cheng, an attorney.
Both are running unopposed.
Fitzgerald said he first got involved in village government as a member of the Third Track Task Force, fighting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan for a third Long Island Rail Road track in the mid-2000s.
He lived across from the train station and felt the urge to get involved with what was happening, he said.
From there, he got more and more involved in the community, whether through his children playing sports or other activities.
“I loved the community and wanted to give back to continue to make it a great place to live,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said he is proud of the village task force he was a part of that helped thwart the plan to build a casino at Belmont Park.
In the 2016 election, Fitzgerald and Cheng both ran on their opposition to the third track and to the video casino proposed for Belmont Park.
He also said he is proud that the village kept within the 2 percent tax cap over the years.
Another accomplishment Fitzgerald noted is the project a few years ago that renovated the community pool that was about 50 years old into a “beautiful facility,” he said.
Fitzgerald said he tries to honor residents’ concerns about proposed development at Belmont Park.
In December, Gov. Andrew Cuomo awarded a bid to New York Arena Partners to create an arena for the New York Islanders at Belmont.
Fitzgerald said he and Longobardi recently met with representatives from the Empire State Development Corp. and Jon Ledecky, owner of Islanders, for a tour around Floral Park.
He and Longobardi showed them “first hand what our concerns are,” Fitzgerald said.
Cheng was appointed as a trustee in February 2016 after the death of Trustee James Rhatigan.
He is running for his second term.
Efforts to reach Cheng were unavailing.
