The four members of the North Hempstead Town Board are elected at-large although once in office they are assigned a specific area of the town as the focus of attention. For years there has been discussion of changing to a system of "councilmanic districts" or "wards," in which candidates would run in a smaller area--for example Great Neck or Port Washington/Manhasset or Westbury-Carle Place-New Cassel or the Willistons and Roslyn. Democrats, who currently hold all seats on the town board, proposed that a referendum be placed on this November's ballot but Republicans circulated petitions calling for a special election. Town Clerk Michele Schimel challenged some of the signatures but she lost the battle in court and the town decided not to appeal. The referendum is now scheduled for April 29. There will be two issues for voters to decide at the referendum -- whether to change to a system of councilmanic districts and, if so, how many districts to create, four or six.

North Hempstead Republican leader Peter Cavallero says that the Republicans are obviously pleased that the town has decided not to appeal the judge's decision. "We hope May (Supervisor) Newburger and the Democrats will act in a bi-partisan manner," he said. Republicans are encouraging voters to vote "yes" for councilmanic districts and to vote to establish six districts. Mr. Cavallero says that they believe that "the smaller the better." For example, he says that although there is no minority community in North Hempstead large enough to create a special district, New Cassel would have a strong minority influence on a small district. There are, according to the Republican leader, still two open questions -- who will draw the lines of the districts and when the first election will be held. Under New York State law the lines would be drawn by the Board of Elections, but under North Hempstead Town law, the town board would draw the lines and the first election for representatives of the new districts would take place in 2005.

Joe Galante, Democratic leader of North Hempstead, was the chairman of the commission that held hearings last year on whether or not to create the councilmanic districts. He says, "no one ever disagreed about the necessity of holding a referendum. The issue was when to hold it. We wanted it to be held during a regular November election when a majority of voters would be voting. The Republicans forced a referendum on April 29 which will cost the town $250,000." Mr. Galante says that he is fearful that very few residents of North Hempstead will even be aware of the April 29 date and therefore a relatively few voters will decide an important issue. Mr. Galante says that if there are to be councilmanic districts, six is probably the way to go. However he has reservations about the whole issue, he said, because there are 31 villages in North Hempstead, which will complicate the method of drawing the district lines.