The Garden City Special Education Parent Teacher Association (SEPTA), is hosting its "Spring Festival" on Friday, May 4. The day's activities will begin at 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. on Seventh Street. This year's festival will include musical groups from the middle and high schools. The Banjo Rascals, Garden City Deli Blues Band, balloon clowns, jugglers, stilt-walkers and radar pitching. Special guest appearances will be made by "Elmo," "Pink Power Puff" and "Pichachu." In addition to face painting, children's character drawings, a variety of amusement games and the ever popular moon walk and giant slide will be offered.

Plan to bring your family out to enjoy a fun-filled event.

I understand that plans are well under way for this year's Belmont Festival in Garden City - the third annual - and that the Clydesdales will be participating in the opening day parade.

Mark your family calendar for Friday evening, June 8. The opening parade will step off promptly at 7 p.m. - from what I've heard, this year's event will be the best so far!

The board of trustees join me extending our sincere gratitude and congratulations to Chief Lawrence Nedelka for being re-elected chief of the Garden City Fire Department. We appreciate the dedicated and professional level of service that he renders to our village. I know that he will continue to do a superb job as he begins his second term in office as chief.

Also as a result of the election held last week, Chief Nedelka will be aided during the coming year by First Assistant Chief Leonard Rivera, Second Assistant Chief Thomas Foley and Edward Moran as third assistant chief. They were also re-elected. We wish them and all the newly elected officers of the Fire Department well and thank them for their dedication and involvement.

From time to time residents call the village to report street light outages or malfunctions. The village passes the information on to its outside contractor to effect immediate repairs.

There are currently 2,380 street lights within the village system illuminating the 74 miles of village roads, 17 miles of county roads and 47 acres of municipal parking fields. Repair services are outsourced via the public bidding process each year. The present contractor is Lighting Maintenance, Inc. at a cost of $32,844.

Under the contract, the contractor repairs all outages, or "day burners" due to broken or damaged lamps, photo cells, ballasts, starters, fuses, etc. They are also called upon to repair, straighten or remove lighting poles and repair all cable, above or below ground.

The village does not pay the actual electrical cost for street lighting. LIPA charges a fixed fee based upon the number of lights in the system. "Day burners" waste the life of the bulb and electricity and should be reported as soon as they are detected.

The contractor is required to effect a once-a-month night patrol to locate and repair outages. Most outages are reported, however, by the Police Department. Village residents are encouraged to directly report outages to the village at 465-4009.