The Farmingdale Observer has received an award from the New York State Press Association's 2001 Better Newspaper Awards Contest, in the category of Community Leadership. A third place award in this category was presented last week to the Farmingdale Observer, an Anton Community Newspaper, for a series of articles and an editorial which the newspaper carried about the controversy surrounding public hiring of immigrant day laborers in Farmingdale last spring. In the midst of a local government crackdown on the public hiring practices on Conklin Street, which was in response to community complaints about traffic and loitering, the newspaper's editorial urged open dialogue within the community and compassion for the day laborers as a means to a solution to the issue. The local government later addressed the issue by establishing a temporary hiring site for the day laborers on a vacant downtown lot. The articles and editorial were written by the former editor of the Farmingdale Observer, and the Massapequan Observer Andrea Morale.