I read, with a mixture of amusement and astonishment, the May 26 statement by two officials of the village of Great Neck who want to be re-elected.
Mayor Bral and Trustee Mendelson painted on whole cloth a charming picture of a little village in good hands. They describe a perfect democratic governance, where officials listen to the citizens and no secrets are kept from the governed.
Whoa; wait a minute. This is a soothing fairy tale meant to lull the curiosity of residents who don’t attend village meetings. But those who have followed the progress of Mayor Bral’s know better — and how!
People who have watched the progress of Pedram Bral as mayor may recall that Candidate Bral ran for office saying he was going to change the unpopular actions of the previous mayor.
Candidate Bral was going to: (1.) Leave our Village Hall in its present, historic location rather than build a modest Taj Mahal elsewhere.
He would keep the village’s well-run public works area, vehicles and garages on Middle Neck Road. But then, shortly after he was elected, Mayor Bral went shopping for buyers of that self- same property.
Candidate Bral also promised he would stand up for popular sentiment.
(2.) He was going to reverse the disrespectful and unwelcome re-zoning of Steamboat Road by his predecessor.
But once elected Mayor Bral found that some mayors like to pal around with powerful developers.
Once elected, Mayor Bral immediately stopped paying heed to residents’ concerns.
Instead, the Bral regime now touts the destruction of our Steamboat neighborhood as one of this mayor’s accomplishments!
He has paid zero heed to the fact that just a few years before, Steamboat residents had fought hard for – and won – an extension of the area’s strong preference for detached, single-family homes.
(3.)Then there’s Mayor Bral’s almost catastrophic dismissal of VGN’s wonderful Vigilant ambulance service.
As a physician at Maimonides Hospital, affiliated with Northwell, Mayor Bral offered Northwell the opportunity to expand its ambulance service, to take over the Vigilant territory.
So Mayor Bral practiced his transparency skills by not telling the Vigilants and not telling the residents that months ago he had arranged a super-quiet meeting with Northwell.
After a furious resident forced the issue by arranging a surprise agenda item, Mayor Bral invented a non-existent “fiduciary” obligation to the New York State Comptroller as his defense for his secret embrace of Northwell.
And yet, Bral still has the nerve to proclaim: “Transparency has been at the core of all (he has done) for the village.”
There is a VGN election on June 20.
You can believe what Pedram Bral has said (in which case I’d like to sell you a bridge).
Or you can vote for Rebecca Gilliar. I support her whole-heartedly.
Elizabeth Allen
Great Neck
