Janet Galante, mayor of the Village of Roslyn since 1995, will not seek re-election to that position in next spring's board of trustee elections. Mayor Galante made her announcement at a recent meeting of Clock Tower Party officers.

At the meeting, both Deputy Mayor Nolan Myerson and Trustee John Durkin indicated to party chairman Milton Grunwald that they wanted to run for another term. Mr. Myerson plans to run for a trustee seat, while Mr. Durkin intends to run for mayor. The Clock Tower Party will meet within a week to select the three candidates---two for trustee positions and one for mayor---that they will then recommend for formal nomination to Clock Tower rank-and-file members.

Mayor Galante said her decision was a personal one. She will leave her position as mayor following the March 2001 elections to return to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in education.

"It has been with reverence and duty that I have embraced the position as mayor of the historic Roslyn Village," Mayor Galante said in a written statement. "I have worked with dedication, high ideals and expectations. We have grown as a community with vision and difficult challenges. We have made vast accomplishments and this village needs to continue to make such strides."

The mayor said that she was "most proud" of her administration's accomplishments in the downtown district. "We have the business garbage off the streets, garbage pails placed throughout the village, beautiful teak benches and planters with seasonal plantings," the mayor added. "There are now carved wooden entrance signs into Roslyn, new streetscape tree plantings and new signage including a pedestrian walkway crossing. We have a refurbished police booth and historic structures, such as the Ellen E. Ward Clock Tower and Roslyn Grist Mill that are now being restored. The downtown district is decorated during the December holidays with the meters being covered, Memorial Day parades, Arbor Day Poster Contests, and committees formed to continue to beautify this special place we all call home."

The mayor also cited private funding gained for both Clock Tower and Grist Mill renovation. "I continue to pledge in seeing that the Grist Mill restoration is completed with the $2.65 million grant from Nassau County and the $50,000 grant from Senator Michael Balboni," she said. "The recent $20,000 grant from KeySpan for the Clock Tower will enable this project to move closer to completion."

Mayor Galante also thanked her colleagues, past and present, on the board of trustees for their "good work" and assistance. She especially thanked former Deputy Mayor Marlene Freeman whose "dedication and knowledge" served as an inspiration to the mayor. In his own written statement, Milton Grunwald, chairman of the Clock Tower Party, commended the mayor for her 10 years of "dedicated service to the village," including the last six as mayor. He noted her term had been marked by many achievements and she had played a prominent and instrumental role in leading the village through "tumultuous times."

"It was clear the village was a better and more interesting place to live thanks in many ways to her blinding passion, unselfish single-minded purpose and genuine commitment to all the residents of Roslyn," Mr. Grunwald said.

In an interview with The Roslyn News, Mayor Galante also said she was satisfied that she "left the community in better shape than when I came in." In addition, she listed three other major accomplishments of her administration: Shutting down the bid by LCS, Inc. to build the Stop & Shop supermarket in Roslyn, the enactment of a new master plan and zoning code for future development in the village, and putting "Village Hall finances in shape." Mayor Galante hoped that the ideals of her administration, including historic preservation and dredging work on Hempstead Harbor, will carry on in future board of trustee decisions.

The mayor also reiterated that she was not looking at the "political angle" when she made her decision, adding that she had known for six months that she was going back to school. In 1999, while running for re-election, Mayor Galante faced a write-in campaign by then-Historic District board member Craig Westergard. That write-in campaign produced respectable results and while Mayor Galante called it an "interesting aspect" of being mayor, that and other recent political events had nothing to do with her decision.

Mayor Galante was first elected to the board of trustees in 1993. She had previously served a term as a zoning board of appeals member. In 1995, she was nominated to run for mayor by Clock Tower Party members. While serving on the BOT, then-Trustee Galante, along with fellow BOT member Marlene Freeman, opposed the construction of the proposed Stop & Shop supermarket in downtown Roslyn. In November 1994, the BOT had voted 3-2 to allow some construction work to begin. That vote was greeted with public opposition to the supermarket, which in time, included Town of North Hempstead Supervisor May Newburger.

The next month, Ms. Galante was nominated by the Clock Tower Party to run for mayor, while Trustee Freeman was chosen to run for deputy mayor. Other Stop & Shop opponents, Nolan Myerson and John Durkin, were eventually nominated to fill the two other BOT seats. All four were easily elected. Ms. Freeman served on the BOT until 1998, when she relocated with her family to Manhattan. Mayor Galante recalled that she did not seek out a run for the mayor's job. At a Clock Tower Party meeting in December 1994, Party Chairman Mike Viola told Ms. Galante that she had just been nominated by the party as their mayoral candidate. Ms. Galante "considered and accepted" the nomination and soon began her six-year tenure as the first female mayor in Roslyn's history.