Voter turnout was low on Tuesday when elections were held in Massapequa, Plainedge and Farmingdale for the board of education and budget elections.

In Massapequa, the budget passed with 71 percent of the vote while retired teacher Arlene Martin defeated incumbent trustee Mike DiDonato. Four candidates ran for DiDonato's seat on the Massapequa School Board. PTA President Kathy Sullivan finished third, followed by resident Paul DeLetto.

Massapequa Superintendent of Schools James Brucia said that he was "elated" that the budget passed and commented that "most people in today's environment look at the bottom line on the budget and in Massapequa's case the bottom line increase was not an onerous increase."

"I'm thrilled that so many people have confidence in me," said trustee-elect Arlene Martin, "I promise to live up to that confidence. I want to be very open and accessible to people if they have anything that they would like to discuss."

Incumbent Trustee Mike DiDonato commented on loosing the election. "For three years I worked really hard and I really worried about 7,200 kids," said DiDonato, "Now I just have my three kids to worry about."

Martin said that her first order of business as a new trustee will be to "find out what my new responsibilities as a board trustee are, then I would like to take a look at the things that are important to the board right now such as the bond issue, standards, the new assessments."

Just days before the elections, negative attack advertisements appeared in a local shopping newspaper urging residents not to vote for Martin because of her support by the Massapequa Federation of Teachers. In response to the advertisements, Martin commented, "I don't look back, I look forward. When you look back it's a waste of time, when you look forward it's the future."

Massapequa Teachers Union Vice-President Don Nobile expressed his support for Martin's victory: "Arlene has a good head and a good heart, and that's what this board of education needs right now."

Nobile commented that the "healing process that needs to take place" between the teacher's union and the school district in the wake of the three-year-long contract dispute "will be much more successful with Arlene on the board."

In Plainedge, the budget passed with 53 percent of the voters casting a yes ballot. Incumbent Tom Dolise and High School PTA President Michael Davis were the top two winning vote-getters in the Plainegde School Board race over newcomer Daniel Yuengling.

Dolise said that he was excited to have won the election and owed his victory to his incumbency. "I think it's because of my name being out, it's known in the community," said Dolise, "The other two candidates were just wonderful and we got along through the whole election."

Plainedge School Board President Josephine Reder on the budget victory: "I think it's a true reflection of the community's support of the board and the job they're doing," said Reder.

Reder said that although Plainedge hasn't lost a budget election in 22 years, that this year's victory was by a larger margin than in previous years.

Farmingdale's two school board races were uncontested, handing the election over to incumbent Josephine Macchia and newcomer Dr. Deloris Saxon. The budget in Farmingdale won by over two hundred votes with a total of 2,258 votes cast.