While county Democrats are reveling in their shocking takeover of the county Legislature, in the Town of North Hempstead, the party also enjoyed a sweeping victory.

Mineola Deputy Mayor Warren Brinker and fellow Republican Robert Lazario failed in their bid to unseat Democratic council members Doreen Banks and Anthony D'Urso, while Democratic Supervisor May Newburger again fended off a challenge by Assemblywoman Maureen O'Connell, who represents a slice of the Roslyn area. In 1997, Newburger defeated O'Connell by just 793 votes. This time, the margin was significantly larger.

Also returned to office was Receiver of Taxes Ann Galante, a Democrat, who defeated Kathleen Forman. The one change to town government came with the defeat of Town Clerk Linda Green at the hands of newcomer Michelle Schimel, a physical therapist at North Shore Hospital.

The campaign, particularly the supervisor's race, was heated at times, with Republican challengers criticizing the budget practices of Newburger's administration, drawing attention to the fact that public hearings on the budget were not scheduled before the election.

Such criticism fell short and Newburger and her Democratic team were on the winning end of a countywide protest vote against a Republican Party which has been wrought with internal conflict over how to deal with the county's $300 million budget deficit.

"The explosion of the county's financial disaster hit everyone in the face," Newburger said. "Tom Gulotta had been telling everyone that things are fine for years, and he was giving them tax cuts for years, and now the taxpayers are paying for it. I think the county situation helped us because people may have thought our opponents were a part of the same group which created this mess and they didn't want it happening to the town."

Brinker said the county situation was a burden to nearly every Republican candidate.

"There was a lot of anger out there," Brinker said. "There's no doubt that every candidate running on the Republican line suffered for the county, regardless of what you were running for. The whole conversation was Nassau County."

During the campaign, O'Connell, Brinker and Lazario, said the town's finances are a mess. They campaigned against what they called a "credit card" system in which, under Newburger's administration, the town is paying 43 percent of the general fund to pay off debt.

Newburger and the Democrats ran on a fiscal record that includes a $4 million budget surplus and the upgrading of the town's bond rating for the first time in 29 years.

"I kept hearing that we have a deficit, while I'm standing there with the auditor's report saying we had a surplus," Newburger said.

Newburger deflected criticism about the town's debt payments by noting the debt had been created during a Republican administration. Much of the debt came from the purchase of the Morewood property, a former sand mine in Port Washington, that the town bought in the mid-1980s under Republican Supervisor John Kiernan. The planned incinerator did not come to fruition, but the recent golf course built on the site last year has begun to generate revenue for the town, Newburger said.

Newburger said Schimel has experience managing a business and will fit in fine as town clerk.