At its Dec. 15 meeting, the Great Neck Library board of trustees voted five to one in favor of mailing unrequested ballots to the 36,000 names on its residency list. The action was proposed by Library Director Christine Salita in response to the library's receipt last month of more than 5,000 proxy requests, over 80 percent of which were computer-generated requests that require a name-by-name validation in the library membership database.

Ms. Salita's Dec. 11 memo to the board stated, "...processing the proxy request forms is very labor intensive...Might the Board consider mailing a proxy ballot to every member of the Great Neck Library Association, as of the record date? Association members would still have the option of voting in person on Jan. 25...though many more proxies would be mailed, the administrative process would be considerably simplified..."

She added that legal counsel, William Cullen, has advised "it is within the rights of the board to mail a proxy ballot to every member of the association, if the board votes to do so."

Based on Trustee Ralene Adler's statement that the requests came ''predominantly from the southern district," Ms. Salita conducted a "quick, not thorough, examination" that revealed "clusters, such as all people on a certain street grouped together" predominantly from Great Neck Estates, Manhasset Hills, New Hyde Park, and the unincorporated areas of Great Neck near Northern Boulevard.

The director estimated that validating 5,000-plus proxy requests would require "approximately 500 man-hours." With the number of requests already exceeding this figure, she estimated that issuing 6,000 proxy ballots would cost $21,500 for "man-power" plus $10,195 for first-class postage at 50 to 55 cents per unit, printing and labeling.

By contrast, Ms. Salita estimated the expense of sending proxy ballots to the entire membership at $17,900, which covers the services of a mailing house and bulk rate postage, at seven cents per unit. An added benefit is that a computer-assigned "official proxy ballot number" will be assigned, "a unique identification number unique to each entry, (to appear) on the mailing labels and proxies.

Ms. Salita summarized her rationale for the full proxy mailing. "To me, it is not political. It is an economic issue and the most appropriate use of scarce public resources. Which makes more sense? To spend more money to send out less, or less money to send out more?"

Trustee Renée Zarin, who is not a candidate for re-election in the upcoming election, stated at the meeting, "There have been thousands of computer generated requests for voting proxies in the election to take place five weeks from now...proxy requests were generated and submitted in bulk in violation of the rules of the library...proxies were not requested by the members whose names appear on them and they are, therefore, invalid...I am appalled at this attempt to skew the Jan. 25 election."

She added, "The trustees must always be alert to any conditions which would divide the library community and give residents living in one or two geographic areas of the peninsula an advantage over everyone else."

Ms. Zarin commented to the Record, "I was absolutely appalled at this. There have been hotly contested elections in the past, and no one has stooped to this kind of manipulation before. The computer-generated proxy requests were not requested by individual members and were therefore invalid."

The sole dissenting vote was cast by Trustee Ralene Adler, who is running as an independent candidate for trustee. Ms. Adler told the Record, "The first time I learned that 5,100 proxy requests had been received by the library was in the director's memo dated Dec. 11. I had expected to go to Tuesday's board meeting to discuss the issue. I did not expect and was horrified to hear a trustee immediately put forth a resolution to issue 38,000 unrequested ballots and then accuse whole communities of having committed an illegal act by participating in the election process, by simply requesting that a ballot be mailed to their home. This same trustee proceeded to identify these communities with their zip codes..."

Ms. Adler's reasons for not supporting the resolution included, "...absolutely no verification of residency prior to mailing an unrequested ballot. The same 10-year-old list will be used simply as a check-off for return ballots...Unrequested ballots will be mailed to homes with people no longer living there, specifically adult children of current residents, those who have moved or have died...there was no accompanying provision to have an outside agency count and process the return ballots."

She questioned why, if the receipt of the ballot requests on Dec. 1 "was viewed as problematic, the board was not informed sooner," so various solutions could have been explored.

Ms. Adler believes "confusion and misinformation for the voters," could result, given the library's recently mailed proxy request postcard and the proxy request boxes still "in full view" at all four library sites. "As a library trustee, I have always insisted that accurate and timely information be provided to the public. I could not support a resolution that did not adhere to that principle."

Ms. Adler added, "In the absence of an adequate cost review, I cannot support this expenditure of upwards of $20,000."

Director Salita advised the board in a Dec. 14 memo that validating the entire library association residency list for "patron re-registration" would follow a "12 to 18 month timeline."

She recently submitted for board review two new proxy ballot formats, based on her finding that "the traditional form is not well organized." Both formats are legally acceptable and replicate the lever-pull strips of a voting machine.

At the Dec. 15 meeting, the board approved a request by Debbie Shichtman, chair of the Great Neck League of Women Voters' committee to study election procedures of Association Libraries in New York State, to "observe various stages" of the upcoming library election.