Friday, September 15, 2017
THE PULSE OF THE PENINSULA
Vol. 92, No. 37
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GUIDE TO STREET FAIRS
G.N. SCHOOLS GET TOP RATINGS
TOWN OKs FUNDING FOR ELEVATOR FIXES
PAGES 37-68
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Laura Curran wins county exec primary Following victory, legislator to take on Republican Jack Martins B Y N O A H M A N S K A R campaign said. Laura Curran won the Democratic nomination for Nassau County executive on Tuesday, handily defeating a former Republican and turning her attention to that party’s current standard-bearer. Curran, a county legislator from Baldwin, beat Nassau Comptroller George Maragos 23,093 votes to 6,265, or 78.5 percent to 21.3 percent. About 7.8 percent of registered Democrats voted Tuesday, a smaller turnout than in the 2013 Democratic primary for county executive. Jay Jacobs, the Nassau Democratic chairman, said that Curran had won just after 10 p.m., well before the Nassau Board of Elections published any returns. The declaration was based on results at several election precincts around the county, Curran’s
Curran must now run a twomonth campaign against Jack Martins, the Republican former state senator from Old Westbury, as the Democrats try to take control of the county seat following the indictment last year of Republican County Executive Edward Mangano. “We are facing a political machine that has proven it knows how to win,” Curran told about 150 supporters Tuesday night at a restaurant on the Nautical Mile in Freeport. “But we know all too well what the reality of those victories have been: corruption scandal after corruption scandal.” Curran’s victory makes her the first woman to ever win a major party nomination for county executive, a year after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win a major party’s Continued on Page 89
PHOTO BY JANELLE CLAUSEN
First responders stand at attention with Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender and others at a 9/11 memorial ceremony at Jonathan L. Ielpi Firefighters Park as Rabbi Marim Charry speaks.
9/11 remains etched in Great Neck’s memory BY JA N E LL E CL AUSEN For many Vigilant Fire Company volunteers, Monday began in Jonathan L. Ielpi Firefighters Park in Great Neck Plaza. They gathered in uniform, holding the American and Vigilant flags, as they approached Ielpi’s memorial to commemorate 9/11. Drills and construction hammers hummed in the back-
ground. Then, at 8:45 a.m., sirens howled from the Vigilant firehouse, matching the time when a hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center’s north tower 16 years earlier. Ielpi, an assistant fire chief for Vigilant and a New York City firefighter, died in the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. At the ceremony, Rabbi Marim Charry, a longtime Vigilant member, spoke of the importance of remembering his-
tory and what one should learn from it. “It’s hard work because evil sneaks up on you and before you know it, you’re enmeshed. So you’ve always got to be alert,” Charry said in an interview. “In American history, you have examples that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Many Vigilant members also went to a memorial ceremony later in the day on the Continued on Page 88
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