Congratulations to Mineola's residents for showing true democracy in action!

The turnout in the recent police referendum was an outstanding testament to the interest that Mineola residents take in local issues and their desire to make their voices known.

While I was personally pleased with the results of the referendum since I agreed with 70 percent of Mineola residents that there were too many unanswered questions about the proposal for a Mineola Police Department, I was even more impressed with the fact that so many people took an active interest in the issue.

As I publicly stated at numerous village hearings on this matter, the Police Task Force deserves a great deal of credit for the time and effort they devoted to studying this issue on behalf of the village. The members of the Task Force are good and decent people who care about Mineola and we should all applaud them. I sincerely hope that they will not take the failure of the referendum personally but rather respect the fact that the vast majority of residents felt differently for one reason or another.

Scholar and author Jerome Nathanson wrote, "The price of the democratic way of life is a growing appreciation of people's differences, not merely as tolerable, but as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience."

Let us all be mindful that we should not allow the recent referendum to divide our village. Instead, let us find ways to unite residents in an effort to improve the village we all love.

Joe Galante