Kings Point Mayor Michael Kalnick joined trustees Sheldon Kwiat and David Harounian in winning re-election Tuesday, as Great Neck’s three village elections returned the peninsula’s incumbent candidates back to office.
With a win in Great Neck’s lone contested election, Kalnick earned his 16th term in office over KP Responsible Gov’t Party challenger Mojgan Sasson, while Kwiat and Harounian defeated Dr. David Schifter and Freydoun Elnekaveh.
Village of Great Neck trustees Mark Birnbaum and Barton Sobel won uncontested re-election bids, as did Village of Lake Success Mayor Ronald Cooper and trustees Stephen Lam, Paul Glantz, Fred Handsman and Village Justice Howard Boris.
“I think the turnout was phenomenal,” Kalnick said. “I believe that this process was educational to many of our residents. I’m hoping that this is the beginning of their becoming more involved in the village.”
Kalnick tallied 816 votes to defeat the 489 garnered by Sasson, who also led an unsuccessful write-in campaign for election onto Kings Point’s board of trustees last June.
Harounian earned re-election to his fifth term on Kings Point’s board of trustees with 830 votes and Kwiat added another two years onto his three-decade long tenure with the village by receiving 828.
“We are pleased because we deserved it,” Harounian said. “Our opponents were very nice people, personally, but unfortunately they had no experience. Experience won.”
Schifter and Elnekaveh tallied 491 and 441 votes, respectively.
The Village of Kings Point incorporates 5,005 residents and 1,475 households.
“It was a wonderful win for the community,” Kwiat said. “We all – Michael, David, myself, (trustees) Peter Aron and Ron Horowitz – really work hard for the village. We put in a lot of time and a lot of effort.”
Although for the second straight year Sasson fell short of earning a spot in Kings Point’s village government, she said her latest foray into local politics was well worth the effort.
“I think that the fact that almost more than 35 percent of the registered voters turned up for the election is a win for Kings Point,” Sasson said. “That in itself is unprecedented in any kind of election, but it made all the difference.”
Last summer, Sasson and Schifter challenged Kings Point incumbent trustees Peter Aron and Ron Horowitz as part of a write-in campaign that materialized weeks before the election.
Aron received 222 votes in last year’s election, while Horowitz garnered 226 to defeat Sasson’s 58 votes and Schifter’s 29.
But, significant controversy arose from that campaign because 130 write-in votes were ultimately disqualified.
Sasson and Schifter last summer threatened to file a lawsuit for alleged voter fraud carried out by village election officials, but later opted instead to let residents decide the outcome of the election this week.
“The fact that the process was smooth and very, very orderly and very civil, just goes to the character of the residents that live in this village,” Sasson said of this week’s election. “I’m really, really proud of everyone who participated.”
Although Village of Kings Point Attorney Stephen Limmer confirmed that 12 write-in votes were disqualified in Tuesday’s election, Sasson said she was satisfied that there was no fraud associated with the race.
“I don’t think anything major (occurred) that would have had any impact on the results,” Sasson said. “We’re going to study (the election), but I doubt that there’s going to be anything else that we’re going to be pursuing at this time.”
“It was a good election,” she added. “It was a good turnout and the results speak for themselves.”
For Kwiat, the election came down to a difference in experience.
“The opposition really had no experience,” he said. “You just can’t say ‘well, life experience qualifies me to run a village.’ It’s a complex organism, a village, with a lot of moving parts. It takes a while to understand.”
Kalnick, Harounian and Kwiat all said they were pleased that the village election was contested, but were discouraged over the past few weeks by the negative tone the campaign took on.
The trio of incumbent officials indicated that negative campaign mailers, phone calls and articles were placed by the KP Responsible Gov’t Party against Kings Point’s incumbents.
“They had the right to run, fine,” Harounian said of his opponents in the election. “They did things that were not as ethical as we thought they would be with all the innuendos and insults, etc. But in politics, it does happen. It’s all forgiven. It’s all clear and voters showed who they preferred to be governing.”
With the campaign now behind him, Kalnick said he is poised to begin his 31st year in office. The mayor said he is also looking forward to “bring in new people and hopefully train them and they’ll become the future.”
“I (will) continue to do good work for the residents, to continue to serve,” Kalnick said. “That’s what this is, public service. It’s not politics.”
In the uncontested Lake Success election, Cooper earned 101 votes, Glantz received 99, Handsman tallied 97 and Lam garnered 91.
Boris also received 99 votes to earn another four-year term as the Lake Success Village Justice.
In the unopposed Village of Great Neck race, Sobel received 128 votes and Birnbaum earned 125.
