Hundreds of Lynbrook residents and concerned voters filed into the Lynbrook Public Library on March 7, 2019, for a “meet the candidates” night hosted by the League of Women Voters. The purpose of the event was to give all the candidates a platform to discuss important issues and the concerns of residents and for voters to become informed on the candidates’ positions on those issues.  

Upon arrival, attendees were offered cards by volunteers of the League of Women Voters and encouraged to write questions for the candidates on them. As explained by Nancy Rosenthal, a member of the League, the League of Women Voters is a “non-partisan organization whose goal is to educate and inform the voters. Remaining unbiased is sometimes difficult, but we do so by weighing the pros and cons of every issue.”  Jane Thomas, a member from the Port Washington Manhasset LWV, additionally explained that the debates are “a service we’ve been providing for many years. We’re coming up to our 100th anniversary of the League, which started soon after the women got the vote, or suffrage. We did this on a national level for presidency up until 1986, but we pulled out then because at that time, they weren’t regulating it how we wanted, and we couldn’t choose our own questions. In a forum like this, we can say no to some questions, and it’s important that we have control over the questions.”   

Thomas, who was the moderator of the debate, began by reading the mission statement of the League. She then read the procedures, which were that questions written on cards by residents would be read, and each candidate would have two minutes to answer each question. The candidates for trustee would be up first, then the candidates for mayor.   

The candidates for trustee, Steven Liguori, David O’Neill, Robert Boccio, Ann Marie Reardon, and Antoniella Tavella, read their opening statements, and afterwards questions selected by the League were read. The candidates were encouraged by Thomas to speak only for themselves, instead of as parts of parties, as the League’s goal was to allow each candidate to express their individual views rather than teaming up.  Topics of the questions included parking, the Cornerstone complex, development and attracting business, and reducing taxes. In response to the topic of Cornerstone, Boccio explained that it was dead as of November 19, 2018, and the application had been pulled weeks before and had only been held for rights, to which Reardon added that they had only considered it because they had to review the proposal to see if it would benefit the village, while Tavella responded that the project was not dead, and the proposal would be back.  Another question asked what the most important issue was in the opinion of each candidate. Reardon, Tavella, Liguori, and Boccio all stated that it was taxes, while O’Neill said it was filling vacant stores. O’Neill later explained that in order to reduce taxes, the village needed to increase their revenue and bring in foot traffic by welcoming new businesses to Lynbrook. Liguori additionally stated that marketing and aiding veterans and seniors was a major concern of his. At the end of the allotted time, the candidates read their closing statements in which they summed up their goals and reasons to vote for each of them.   

Alan Beach and Hilary Becker, the candidates running for the mayoral position, then read their opening statements. Questions were then asked about how they planned to attract young people to the village, how they would fill empty stores, parking concerns, community involvement in village decisions, increasing the tax base, transparency, their plan for the next four and ten years, their plans for infrastructure, and how they would work together depending on the outcome. Beach detailed that he wanted to bring in business and development, while Becker said he thought we should take a step back rather than rushing into new buildings. They then gave their closing statements, describing what they could do for the village and why a vote for the other candidate would be detrimental.  

Members of the League and Chamber of Commerce were impressed with the success of the event. The turnout of voters caused the part of the library where it was held to be at maximum capacity, and people waiting downstairs were not let in until a person left to avoid exceeding this capacity. Despite having to be quieted down by the moderator a few times, most occurrences being caused by audience groans at the mention of Cornerstone, organizers believed the crowd was generally respectful and well-behaved. Mike Davies, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce, commented, “I think it was a great success. I was very impressed by the League of Women Voters in moderating the event, I was very happy that the chamber members came and helped out, and most importantly I was very happy to see the residents and citizens of Lynbrook conducting themselves with the civility to listen to all of the candidates.” Thomas stated, “I feel it was successful. One of the things I try to do is to kind of chum up the crowd, and be personal, to say things that we all feel, rather than to be a policewoman- you just don’t want to do that. I didn’t even bring my gavel, but I didn’t need it. One thing that I was upset about was that there were no questions asked about problems facing Lynbrook schools, and issues involving diversity. I would have liked to see at least one or two questions about that.”