At the July 10 meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Great Neck, traditionally a meeting that is organizational in nature, Deputy Mayor Ralph Krietzman presided in Mayor Richard Deem's absence. This is the meeting at the beginning of the village's fiscal year in which appointments for the various village boards/committees and employee positions are made.

Mr. Kreitzman began by saying, "The mayor has sent me nothing in writing, has not called me and did not speak with me when I saw him on both Saturday and Sunday. He did however send a memo to John Dominsky, our clerk-treasurer stating, 'Here are the appointments that I wish to make in the coming year' that listed the appointments." Mr. Dominsky had forwarded that list to the trustees in time for the meeting.

Deputy Mayor Kreitzman went on to say, "By law, in the mayor's absence I have the power to make all appointments subject to the board of trustees' approval in most cases. I agree with 35 of the appointments on the mayor's list and disagree with about 5. Here's what I'm going to do. In an effort to bring the village together and to heal any wounds and to ask everyone to work together with their elected trustees and the mayor for the best interest of the village and all its residents and in an effort to try to get our mayor to communicate with and work with the trustees, I appoint the following, subject to the approval of the trustees, from the mayor's list and entirely consistent with what is on his list."

There was also a short list of appointments, the cable commissioner, building department superintendent, housing authority commissioner and an Architectural Review Board member that Mayor Deem had left blank which essentially means that the people in those positions are "carried over" and kept in those positions for another year.

Regarding three vacant positions, Mr. Kreitzman said, "I will defer to the mayor to propose people at the next meeting with the hope that we can talk and propose mutually acceptable people."

The board of trustees then voted unanimously to approve all the recommended appointments.

In another matter, the planning board and the board of appeals are allowed under the village code to have an alternate panelist to avoid the delays that occur if at a meeting there is no quorum. Mr. Kreitzman recommended that the village institute a similar provision for the Architectural Review Committee, a code change to be discussed at a future meeting.