With the retirement of Lucy Agovino and Marvin Guberman there are two positions that need to be filled on the Massapequa Park Village Board. Elections to fill these positions, as well as the position of mayor, will take place on March 16. There are six people running for the two trustee spots.

In this year's election there are three village parties that have come forward. Each party has a candidate for mayor and two candidates for trustee. The two trustee candidates who receive the most votes in the election will fill the spots.

Running on the Village Integrity Party line for trustee are Joseph Pinto and Harry Jacobson, who are running with mayoral candidate Scott Wiss. Robert Wilcox and Robert Thompson are the trustee candidates running with mayoral candidate Camillo Giannattasio on the Your Village Party line. Bruce Farco and Daniel Scarisbrick, along with mayoral candidate Rocco Dionisio Jr., make up the Working Class Party.

Pinto is currently a member of the Village Planning Commission and is a CPA, employed as a controller for a construction management and engineering firm. For the last 12 years he has served the community as a vice president, board member, fund raiser, and coach of the Massapequa International Little League. As a fund raiser he raised over $25,000 in the past two years and was instrumental in having two scoreboards donated to the Little League. He was also the chairman of the Christopher Adams Memorial Field Committee, which was created to honor the memory of Captain Christopher Adams, a former resident of the village and a member of the Massapequa International Little League, who lost his life in the bombing in Saudi Arabia. Pinto and his family are active members of St. Rose of Lima. He and his wife Janis, a 31-year resident of the village, have two sons.

Wilcox is a U.S. Navy Veteran in World War II, decorated with three battle stars, a member of American Legion Post 1, past commander of VFW Post 7763, master of ceremonies for the Memorial Day Parade, and a member of VFW Post 7763 Color Guard. He is a founding member of and usher at St. Rose of Lima Church. He was a CYO baseball coach in the community, is a past chairman of Boy Scout Troop 696, a member of AARP, and active on the Village Zoning Board of Appeals from 1984 to present. He and his family have been residents of the village for 48 years. He and his wife Margaret have four children and nine grandchildren. He was a sales executive and manager with a large wholesale office supply company.

Bruce Farco works at New York Presbyterian Hospital, where he has been employed for over 17 years and has lived in the village for nine years. He is a graduate of the New York Institute of Technology. He coaches Massapequa Soccer, has coached CYO baseball, and is active in Our Lady of Lourdes Church, where he has taught CCD. He interned for County Comptroller Fred Parola in 1994 when Parola first took over as comptroller. He is married and has three children.

Harry Jacobson has just been appointed to replace Marvin Guberman on the village board. He has been a resident of the village since 1955 and has served on the Village Zoning Board of Appeals since 1992. He has served as vice chairman of the zoning board of appeals since 1996. He is a charter member and past president of the Massapequa Park Lions Club, is a founding member of Boy Scout Troop 565, having served as Cub master, Scout master and president, he is a former member and chairman of the Massapequa Student Fund which is an organization devoted to awarding grants and loans to needy graduate students. He is a board member of the vacation camp for the blind and received the 1998 Volunteer of the Year Award from them. He is also on the fund-raising staff for the Guide Dog Foundation of Nassau County. He has received a lifetime honorary membership award from the New York State PTA and has received numerous certificates of appreciation from the Village of Massapequa Park for volunteering his time to various community events. He and his wife Jessica, who have three children, four grandchildren, and one great-grandson, have been helping developmentally disabled children at the Carman Road Boces School in Massapequa for over 10 years.

Daniel Scarisbrick, who was born in Brooklyn but moved to North Massapequa at the age of two and has lived in Massapequa Park for 15 years, is married with three children. He attended Massapequa Schools and graduated from Berner High School in 1971. He has been the president of the Massapequa Mustangs for the last six years, with which he has been involved for 16 years. Prior to his presidency he served as treasurer for that organization. He has also served on the board of directors for Massapequa Coast Little League, is involved in fund raising for the Kiwanis Club and is involved in community football clinics.

Thompson has been active in the village for many years. He has served on the village board as a trustee, deputy mayor and mayor. He became a trustee in 1969 and was elected mayor in 1975, a position he served in until 1985. He is the past vice president of the New York Conference of Mayors. He is currently serving on the Massapequa Board of Education, of which he was president last year. He is a past president of the Chamber of Commerce of which he was Person of the Year in 1989, was Person of the Year for Nassau County Council of Chambers, past president of the Kiwanis and is on the board of directors of AARP. He served as chairman of the Nassau County Legislative Technical Advisory Committee: Veterans Committee Chairperson, has served on various board committees, served on the board of directors of YES, was co-chairperson of COPE, where he was the 1995 person of the year, and is a life member of Disabled American Veterans. He is retired from his job with New York Telephone and is married with four children and 10 grandchildren.

Thompson stated that he decided to run for trustee again because he was not happy with the way things are going in the village now. This is a thought that has been expressed by several trustee candidates. Farco stated, "I'm not happy with certain things. I have issues with stuff in the village." The other main reason that several candidates, such as Wilcox, cited as their reason for running was their confidence in their running mates. Thompson said, "I know Camillo, he is an established person in the community, and once Bob Wilcox agreed to come along then I decided that it was a reputable slate of people that I can respect."

Each of the candidates made suggestions for improvements that they would like to see in the village. Scarisbrick believes that he can bring a new perspective to the village board. He hopes to find the cause of and solution for the flooding problems in the village. Farco, besides concerns with the flooding, is also concerned about the condition of the roads in the village and would like to see something done about that. Scarisbrick would also like to work for the youth of Massapequa, giving them a place to go and be non-destructive and useful members of the community. One other suggestion that he had was to make town services available after hours for residents who work and may not be able to get down to village hall during the day.

Flexible hours, to meet the needs of the residents is also a priority for the Your Village Party candidates, as is the issue of flooding. They believe that within 30 days of being elected they can identify and resolve the flooding problems on Philadelphia Avenue and Ocean Avenue.

The VIP team plans, if elected, to implement a carefully engineered, comprehensive capital facilities renovation program to repair village roads and correct poor drainage situations. They said, "This multi-year plan will be designed to keep our community's roadways in top shape and free of drainage problems."

Other concerns to all three parties are senior citizen affairs, quality of life preservation and taxes. Each of the candidates expressed thoughts on how they would like to deal with those situations which affect so many members of the community. Each of the candidates also expressed the belief that their party has a very good chance of winning in this election, but as Farco said, "It is vital that everyone come out and vote." The elections will be held on March 16.