Incumbent school board trustees retained their seats and budgets were roundly passed in districts serving the Roslyn area on Tuesday during school elections, which had been delayed by state order due to the coronavirus.
The elections were conducted by absentee ballot.
In Roslyn, school board President Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy and Vice President Clifford Saffron each won a sixth three-year term. Ben-Levy received 2,054 votes, while Saffron received 1,992.
The district’s proposed $115,860,057 budget for the 2020-21 school year and tax levy estimate, 2.96 percent, which is below the state-mandated limit of 3.63 percent, also passed. Of the 2,486 voters who submitted ballots, 1,808 voted to approve the budget, while 678 percent rejected it.
Voters also passed two propositions to pay for school buses with a tax levy over a five-year period and to establish a capital reserve fund. The bus proposition passed with 73 percent of the vote, while the capital reserve proposition passed with 69 percent.
In Mineola, incumbent Board of Education members Margaret Ballantyne-Mannion and Patrick Talty, running unopposed on the ballot, were re-elected. Ballantyne-Mannion, the board’s vice president, will begin a third term after receiving 2,711 votes. Talty, running for his second term, received 2,732 votes.
The $100,859,780 budget, a 0.9 percent increase over the $99,955,750 budget for 2019–20, was approved by 74.63 percent of voters. The budget comes with a proposed tax levy increase of 2.5 percent, below the state-mandated limit for the district.
Of the 3,756 voters who submitted ballots, 25.37 percent rejected the budget.
In Glen Head’s North Shore School District, incumbent Richard Galati and newcomer Andrea Macari were elected to two open school board seats, with 3,585 and 3,255 votes, respectively. Third-place candidate Robert Mazzella received 1,782.
The proposed $110,315,208 budget passed with 62 percent of the 4,976 ballots cast. Voters also approved a proposition to spend “an amount not to exceed $3,000,000 for school building improvement projects at Glen Head Elementary School and North Shore Middle School” with 70 percent of the vote.
In East Williston, Board of Education President Mark Kamberg was re-elected to the board, and the district’s $56.7 million budget for the 2020-21 school year was approved, with 1,411 votes in favor and 556 opposed.
Kamberg defeated challenger Raymond Del Maestro by 1,423 votes to 556. Trustee Tasneem Meghi was also re-elected with 1,467 votes after running unopposed.
Kamberg has served on the board since 2008. He has lived in Albertson for 19 years, and is the president of S. Kamberg & Company, a food ingredients company based in Great Neck that his father founded.
Before the election, Kamberg said he hoped that his track record with the East Williston school district would speak for itself.
“Twelve years has meant 36 moving up and graduation ceremonies, over 160 concerts, and plays, multiple academic award ceremonies, 600-plus board, committee, and PTO meetings and countless other, community, state, and even national events on behalf of our district,” Kamberg said. “It has allowed me to celebrate the successes of our children as well as continue to learn more about what I can do for our district.”
Efforts to reach Meghi for comment were unavailing.
In Herricks, Trustees Henry R. Zanetti and James Gounaris kept their seats over newcomers Bhajan S. Ratra and Tarantej S. Arora.
The campaign, marked by the challengers critiquing the incumbents over the school’s budget and issues of transparency during Board of Education meetings, came to a head when Gounaris posted a photo of a ballot paper on Facebook, tagging Zanetti, with the bubbles next to Gounaris’ and Zanetti’s names clearly filled in. The image was captioned, “This is the correct way to fill out your Herricks ballot.”
Ratra and Arora then reported the post to the district clerk, the New York State Board of Elections and Nassau County Board of Elections requesting that they investigate the “unfair and unethical practices” of Gounaris and Zanetti regarding the election. Gounaris said the post was legitimate.
In his race, Zanetti received 72 percent of the vote, with Ratra receiving 28 percent. The other race saw Gounaris receive 72 percent to Arora’s 28 percent.
The proposed $120,534,523 budget, a 2.547 percent increase from the 2019-20 budget of $117,541,264, was passed with 63 percent of the 4,924 ballots in favor.
Robert Pelaez contributed reporting.
