School Board Incumbents Await Final Vote Tallies

Newcomer Stewart Mininsky declared himself “sort of speechless” on learning that he pulled the most votes in Long Beach's Board of Education election late Tuesday night, even though official tallies were not released to determine the winner of the second seat in the at-large election. 

“I’m going to try to fulfill the trust of the people that supported me and had faith in me to do the right thing for the district and the children,” Mininsky managed to tell Patch from his home, where he waited with his family for the results Tuesday.

“We will see about fiscal oversight,” added Mininsky, whose campaign struck the theme that the district must do a better job of cutting expenses and reducing wasteful spending. “These are the main things that I ran on. July 1 we get to work.”

While Mininsky sat home, incumbents Darlene Tangney and Gina Guma were at the Long Beach Middle School, where they remained uncertain about their status on the board in a reportedly tight race for the second seat. School district officials said then that the vote totals between the two candidates were too close to call Tuesday, and that they would have to wait for the Nassau County Board of Elections to verify about 18 affidavit ballots on Wednesday.

Guma and Tangney campaigned as a team and cited maintaining and enhancing educational programs as their top priorities, touting the district’s proposed $122.1 million budget as one that preserves all programs or services for students.

Guma, who seeks a fourth term on the board, was beyond surprise with how the results were unfolding. “Between Mrs. Tangney and I, we have dedicated 46 years of our lives advocating for children,” she said. “We are quite – a little shocked. I am not taking the win away from Mr. Mininsky.”

She said that, compared to past elections, Tuesday's voter turnout was "poor," and that there was “a lot of apathy” on the part of the public. Tangney was disappointed that Mininsky, an employee with the district’s maintenance department who will retire in June, received the highest number of votes.

“I am disappointed in the community with that," said Tangney, who is vying to serve a second term on the board. "Having an employee run? Especially after Gina and I have dedicated collectively over 40 years of volunteering for the district and advocating for children as a volunteer.”

School board President Dr. Dennis Ryan said that the district would withhold the numbers of the results until 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, when the final votes will be announced at the middle school. The Board of Elections must check to make sure that some residents were eligible to vote at certain polling sites. Ryan and Superintendent David Weiss declined to comment on the election until the results were finalized.

Meanwhile, residents approved the $122.1 million budget by a vote of 1,841 to 936, according to the district. The 2012-13 budget represents a 3.7 percent tax levy increase and is $3.5 million costlier than the current spending plan. The increase will reduce the principal on a $98 million bond to fund a district-wide preservation plan to upgrade facilities that voters approved in 2009. Both Guma and Tangney both said they were happy that the community supported the budget.

“This Board of Education, for two years in a row, gave a great budget – zero-to-zero, budget-to-budget increases,” Guma said, referring to the zero percent increases to the operating portion of the budget. “You can’t get better than that. I am very happy that the voters understood and came out and supported the budget.”

Weiss said that since the spending plan was unveiled, many people had asked good questions about it and they received answers that allowed them to make appropriate decisions. “In this case, given the fact that the only increase in the budget was to our preservation plan, which people had previously approved, I think the outcome made a lot of sense to a lot of people,” he said.

Ryan believes the budget vote demonstrated “tremendous support” from the public during tough economic times. “It is nice of the community to show support of public education by coming out and voting in such numbers,” he said.

* This story was updated at 8:21 a.m. on 5.16.12.