POAs Gear Up For Annual Electors' Meetings

Garden City's four property owners' associations are gearing up for their electors' meetings, held annually in January.

The Central POA meets at 7:30 p.m. at The Wyndham Condominiums; The West POA meets at 7:30 p.m. at Homestead School; the East POA meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Garden City Public Library (lower level); and the Estates POA meets at 8 p.m. at Stratford School (cafeteria). 

Each association will make their nominations official for village and school board trustee positions.

The East POA Nominating Committee will place sitting village board trustee Dennis Donnelly into nomination for another two-year term. Laura Flanagan from the Garden City Public Library's reference department will also provide a presentation, "We're More Than Just Books - Come Check Us Out."

The West POA Nominating Committee will place sitting village trustee Larry Quinn into nomination for another two-year term. Police Commissioner Ernest J. Cipullo, Police Inspector Kenneth Jackson, Fire Chief William J. Graham and First Assistant Chief Charles Cavarra will also speak.

The Estates POA Nominating Committee will place John DeMaro into nomination for village board trustee, to replace Rob Rothschild whose tenure as mayor ends in April. DeMaro is the current Estates POA president. Back in 2007, he was nominated by the Estates Nominating Committee to serve as a village trustee. Rothschild, a sitting trustee at the time, challenged his POA's nomination of DeMaro and won the Jan. 30, 2007 run-off election by a vote of 437 to 197.

The Central POA Nominating Committee will place current deputy mayor Don Brudie into nomination for village mayor, sitting village trustee Andrew Cavanaugh into nomination for a one-year term (2011-2012) and sitting school board trustee Angela Heineman into nomination for another three-year term.

Under Garden City's Community Agreement, which was adopted back in 1919, "the four property owners' associations are the conduits which supply the slate of candidates. At all times each section of the village has two of its residents on the board of trustees, assuring equal representation."

At each association meeting, any 15 or more residents can challenge the person(s) nominated by submitting a petition for an alternate candidate at Tuesday's meeting. The residents need not be POA members but they must be residents of that particular section of the village.

Challenges force a runoff election to be held in February. The name of the winner of that runoff election will officially appear on the ballot for the village election in March.