{"id":150045,"date":"2026-03-02T20:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/150045\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T20:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:25:09","slug":"great-neck-village-lawmakers-run-for-re-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/150045\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Neck village lawmakers run for re-election"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Great Neck residents prepare to go to the polls and vote for their village representatives on Wednesday, March 18<\/a>, many familiar faces are running for re-election.<\/p>\n

In the Village of Thomaston, trustees Aaron Halpern and Jay Chagrin are running unopposed.<\/p>\n

Both were initially drawn to local politics after a plan was proposed in 2021 to replace the historic Tower Ford auto dealership with an apartment complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral residents, myself included, wanted it made into a landmark,\u201d Chagrin said<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a village,\u201d Halpern said, but the activists succeeded in pushing the village to designate it as a landmark. In 2022, two trustees chose to not run for re-election, and Chagrin and Halpern were elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in what goes on in my neighborhood, and I have opinions as far as making sure that the community stays the way we like it,\u201d Halpern said. \u201cWe make sure that we don\u2019t have any large development projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chagrin said this led him to be more skeptical about local policymakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCertain things were a little eye-opening after I retired and started getting more involved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Chagrin and Halpern said they are proud of the board\u2019s commitment to maintaining the village\u2019s quality of life, and Halpern highlighted that the village\u2019s budget has been in good standing, so the board has not had to increase taxes in recent years.<\/p>\n

He also touted a recently passed law that restricted short-term rentals in the village.<\/p>\n

Chagrin has been involved in the Save Kings Point Park activist movement to prevent a land swap of public parkland with a private organization.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI think that there is a need to get more community awareness and involvement in saving Kings Point Park,\u201d said Chagrin. \u201cIt is one of the last virgin forests on the North Shore of Long Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chagrin criticized the Village of Kings Point and the Great Neck Park District for its support of the plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just want to knock it down for private use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Village of Kensington Mayor Jeffrey Greener is also up for re-election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important for everybody to be involved in their community and engaged in civic life,\u201d Greener said.<\/p>\n

Greener said he got involved in local politics 10 years ago when he was asked to serve on the Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n

Last year, when former Mayor Susan Lopatkin moved out of the village, then-deputy mayor Greener took over as mayor.<\/p>\n

\"VillageVillage of Thomaston Jeffrey Greener is running for reelectionLong Island Press archives<\/p>\n

Greener said it was not much of a learning curve because he had already been deeply involved with the village, but it was a lot more work.<\/p>\n

Greener said he is not looking for many changes in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maintaining the status quo is an accomplishment,\u201d he said, and that residents were happy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep it pretty low key.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kensington trustees Linda Cheung and Andrew Bloom are each running for re-election to two-year terms as well, but efforts to contact them were unavailing.<\/p>\n

In the Village of Saddle Rock, Mayor Dan Levy, Village Justice Julia Gavriel, and trustees Dan Chadow, Alex Kishinevsky, and Robert Kraus are all running for reelection to four-year terms.<\/p>\n

Village Clerk\/Treasurer Carmela Speciale said she is still waiting to hear back from the Board of Elections on who else is running, but she said that there will be contested elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Great Neck residents prepare to go to the polls and vote for their village representatives on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[7946,7126,9,24,63,122,124,123,61188],"class_list":["post-150045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-great-neck","tag-kensington","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-thomaston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}