Stewart Manor Upset

Stewart Manor resident William Grogan won a spot on the Village Board of Trustees in the annual election held last Tuesday, March 18. Grogan ousted incumbent Orlando Sa while Mary Carole Schafenberg was reelected to her position as trustee.

Newcomer Grogan, representing the Independent Unity Party, won by a large margin and received the most votes out of all three candidates, 225. Schafenberg held onto her seat with 204 votes. Sa and Schafenberg represented the Village Party.

“I’m both honored and humbled that the residents of Stewart Manor have entrusted me with this responsibility,” Grogan said. “This is a spectacular place to raise a family and I’m motivated to keep it that way.”

Grogan has been a village resident since 1976 and has 45 years of business and managerial experience from working at IBM and Texaco, Inc. Most of his plans for office pertain to reining in excess spending and collaborating with the village board to find new sources of revenue. The goal is to keep taxes low and manageable, while also understanding that the cost of living in Nassau County is constantly increasing.

“I want to avoid raising taxes in any significant way,” he said.

Grogan suggests implementing a 5-year strategic plan to tackle the financial issues. He hopes to accurately forecast known mandated expense increases and plan a fiscally responsible schedule for the maintenance and replacement of all village capital assets.

The term of a village trustee is four years. Elections are staggered, with two of the four trustee positions expiring every two years. Both incumbents were in office as acting trustees, seeking reelection for their first full terms.

When Deputy Mayor Tangredi became mayor, his vacant trustee seat was filled by Schafenberg. Sa was appointed to fill out the remaining term of former trustee James Lynch, who resigned last year. Grogan has been elected to finish the last year of Lynch’s term, and will be up for reelection himself next March for his own four-year term.

Also put to a vote at this election was whether or not residents who live on Fernwood Terrace would continue to have access to the Garden City Public Library. A library fee is included in their village taxes, but those residents had the opportunity to opt out of the Garden City Library District with this vote.

“The question is, Do older residents want to keep paying for library access when many of the kids can use their school library anyway?” explained election official Marianne McCarthy.

Fernwood Terrace residents voted to retain their library access 56 to 15.