A pair of current Nassau County Legislators will be leading the Town of North Hempstead next year.
Judi Bosworth (D-Great Neck), who represents the county’s 10th District, was elected town supervisor on Tuesday over Republican challenger and Town Councilwoman Dina De Giorgio, while Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn), of the 11th District, unseated Leslie Gross as town clerk.
“This one is for our future and our future is about building,” Bosworth said in her victory address at the Democrats’ results viewing party at Westbury Manor. “It’s about building consensus, it’s about building bridges, it’s about having a building department that will encourage people to develop and build in North Hempstead. We’re going to be building all over.”
Bosworth, who ran on a platform of maintaining the town’s financial performance under former Supervisor Jon Kaiman while holding the line on taxes and revitalizing North Hempstead’s downtown areas, earned 54.80 percent of the vote in her race against De Giorgio.
Wink defeated Gross 49.82 percent to 45.83 percent, while conservative party candidate Joe Wood received 4.32 percent.
“We won this as a team,” Wink said. “We came into this campaign knowing that, as a team, we would be able to win this only as a team.”
Wink, who prior to serving the Legislature was a North Hempstead councilman, ran on what he has described as a history of speaking truth to power toward both parties and a platform that would improve relations between the clerk’s office and different town departments so town hall could operate more efficiently.
Wink, who said in an interview that he had no intention of seeking another legislative term even before his Roslyn district was divided by Republican legislators, had begun campaigning for the county comptroller nomination against former Comptroller Howard Weitzman, but left the race shortly after Weitzman received backing from the party and major unions.
Gross, a Great Neck resident, received the Republican nomination for the position after Wink was backed by the Democrats, as part of what she has called a “bipartisan union” with De Giorgio and town Republicans.
Gross criticized Wink throughout the campaign for running for clerk when it was not his first choice, while Wink questioned Gross’ party switch despite maintaining her allegiances to the Democrats.
“We were running against an opponent who believed this team wasn’t necessary for her to be the town clerk,” Wink said. “We were running against an opponent who made us, her team, the opponent of this race, and made the great Democratic team the problem, not the solution. We know better.”
Last week, De Giorgio and Gross lodged a formal complaint with the county Board of Elections about signature petitions submitted on Wood’s behalf. They said their examination of those petitions indicated that Town of North Hempstead employees had circulated the petitions on behalf of Wood, suggesting Democrats engineered his presence on the ballot.
“What they did with the Conservative line definitely impacted Leslie’s election,” De Giorgio said.
Gross said it was “certainly a disgrace” that Wood, who was recently arrested on sexual molestation charges and earned more than 1,800 votes Tuesday, was still on the ballot and “stole the election.”
“The results speak for themselves if you look on the Conservative line,” Gross said. “If that’s what the public wants, that’s what the public gets.”
De Giorgio, who received 45.16 percent of the vote, was visibly disheartened by her loss to Bosworth, but said she was motivated to continue in her town council position.
“It’s a tough loss. We worked really hard. But I’m going back to a job I love,” said De Giorgio, a Port Washington resident. “I still have a lot of work to do.”
Asked about her thoughts about the campaign, De Giorgio said. “I think we ran a great campaign. We didn’t do anything underhanded. I’m happy with the campaign.”
She said there were efforts by Democrats to undermine her campaign effort, saying hundreds of her campaign lawn signs were removed in the weeks prior to the election.
“I think it’s shameful,” De Giorgio said. “If you win doing dirty tricks, is it really a win?”
She said that activity increased as the campaign entered the final days, but said she did not know who removed the signs.
“They were spreading a lot of rumors about me,” De Giorgio said of her opponents. “It is what it is. It’s an election.”
Democrats Lee Seeman and Viviana Russell, and Republican Angelo Ferrara were each re-elected to their positions on the town council.
Seeman, a Great Neck resident who was elected to represent the town’s 5th district in 2005, earned 54.94 percent of the vote in her race against Great Neck lawyer Jeff Benjamin, while Russell, of New Cassel, earned 56.51 percent of the vote in her race for the council’s 1st district position against Republican challenger Anthony Bulzomi.
“It’s an honor to be elected to the 5th district for the next four years,” Seeman said. “I look forward to working with the community so we can make North Hempstead of the greatest places to live in the country.”
Russell said she was particularly looking forward to working on infrastructure issues and with the town Building Department in her next term.
I’m happy to serve a second term. I’m happy to continue to serve all the areas in my district,” Russell said. “It was a tough race and I’m glad that I came out victorious.”
Ferrara, a four-term incumbent in the 3rd district, received 62.87 percent in his race against Democrat Sid Nathan, who ran while on leave of absence as a public information officer for the Town of North Hempstead.
“I was very pleased with my results, because once again there was a lot of crossover with independents and Democrats. It indicates what I’ve done for everybody came back from everybody, so I was pleased from that standpoint,” Ferrara said.
He said he was disappointed that De Giorgio and Gross lost, but said, “I’ve always worked with whoever I work with for the benefit of the people.”
Erica Prager and David Goodsell were each re-elected to their positions as district court judges, and Scott Siller, a Village of Flower Hill trustee, received 17.27 percent of the vote in his election to the court. Prager received 18.14 percent of the vote and Goodsell earned 17.96 percent of the overall vote.
