Williston Park’s William Carr to challenge Ed Ra in November
Feeling that there is a disconnect between elected officials and their constituents, Williston Park resident and village trustee, William Carr, has decided that it’s time for a change. Challenging incumbent Assemblyman Ed Ra in the upcoming November elections for District 19, Carr said it’s time for regular people to head to Albany.
“Every time you turn around, they’re running a lawyer or a millionaire as a candidate,” said Carr. “You represent approximately 125,000 people. How many people reflect that? They don’t. We need people like me who have four kids going to college to start making the decisions. Not somebody who doesn’t have a grasp of the demographics of our area.”
Born and raised in Freeport, Carr graduated from Freeport High School in 1992 and was active in the Freeport Fire Department where he was a volunteer firefighter. In 2001, Carr moved to Williston Park with his wife, Cathy, and is a father to four children—Liam, Joey, Veronica and Rusty—who all attend schools within the Mineola school district.
Besides being village trustee for the past six and a half years and a full-time father, Carr is a union electrician for 22 years ultimately working his way up to general foreman. He is also involved in community organizations such as the Boy Scouts, coaching CYO girls volleyball at Saint Aidan’s and coaching the local Little League baseball and lacrosse league.
If elected as assemblyman, Carr said he would fight for the working middle class, to protect unions after the Supreme Court Janus case, which allowed people to stop paying union dues and for more gun control.
“The only pressing issues that I know of that are affecting our constituents are the water rates from American Water up in Glen Head. I would also make Long Island Rail Road, especially with the third track project, responsible for all the money that they’ve been given and spending to get us better service. It shouldn’t be in the fate of affairs that it’s in. I would definitely hold them accountable,” he explained.
Carr is also passionate about fully funding schools and using money that is being used to help curb the opioid epidemic to be put into afterschool programs to keep kids busy and out of trouble.
Carr believes that having a hand in local government issues while serving on the village board definitely helps his chances of winning.
“It definitely gives you a lot of experience in government on a small level,” said Carr. “I come from the private sector and we can make it rain and I thought I could do the same thing when I stepped on that board. You just got to learn to work the process as well as you can and make things happen.”
One day out of the blue in 2012, Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar asked Carr to run for village trustee. However, it was convincing and encouragement from Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss that made Carr run in the long end.
“We have a connection through Boy Scouts,” explained Carr. “My oldest son is an Eagle Scout with Troop 45 and so is Strauss’ two boys. We were both assistant Scoutmasters. I reached out to him and we sat down on a Saturday morning and he went over everything and here I am. He convinced me to do it.”
Carr said that being a trustee adds a lot to one’s life, especially one who has four kids, but he finds that productive people find a way to get things done.
One of Carr’s proudest accomplishments is improvements to the Village of Williston Park, including the addition of a new stage at Kelleher Field, adding handicap bathrooms to the field and making the basketball court middle school regulation size.
“We [also] put kiosks around the town. We paved $1.2 million worth of roads. I think we did close to $150,000 worth of curb work throughout the neighborhood as well,” said Carr.
However, with all those improvements made to the village, Carr said he’s the most proud of settling a 22 year old water dispute with the Village of East Williston. East Williston village trustee James Iannone and Carr had a connection through a mutual friend, which started talks between the two villages.
“That was the biggest accomplishment because we should be working with our neighboring village,” said Carr.
IBEW Local Union 25 in conjunction with the Long Island Federation of Labor and the Long Island Building Trades will be having a fundraiser breakfast for Carr early next month at IBEW’s headquarters in Hauppauge.
“I think bringing regular people to Albany is the way to go and I’m a firm believer in that,” said Carr.
