Serving New Hyde Park, Floral Park, Garden City Park, North Hills, Manhasset Hills and North New Hyde Park
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Friday, May 21, 2021
Vol. 70, No. 21
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PAGES 21-44
N.Y. ADOPTS CDC GUIDANCE
CURRAN LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN
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New faces elected to F.P.-Bellerose board Challengers Jaclyn O’Donohue, Beth Kierez win races BY R OB E RT PE L A E Z Two newcomers were elected to the Floral Park-Bellerose Board of Education on Tuesday. Winning candidates Jaclyn O’Donohue and Beth Kierez received 751 and 725 votes, respectively. O’Donohue defeated Amanda Talty to fill the seat on the board previously held by President Laura Ferone, who is retiring after 14 years on the board, district officials said. Kierez defeated incumbent Trustee Douglas Madden, who had been on the board since 2017. “Thank you to EVERY ONE of our supporters and team
leaders who were right there with us all day!!,” O’Donohue said in a Facebook post. “Could not have done any of this without you and I am so thankful and appreciative of everything!” Efforts to reach Kierez for comment were unavailing. O’Donohue, a registered nurse, has been active in several local organizations, including as president of the Wednesday Mother’s Club, Liz’s Day board member and co-leader of her daughter’s Girl Scout troop and son’s Cub Scout den. Kierez has spent the last two decades in the educational field, including as the current assistant principal at Benja-
min N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens. Kierez has four children and said her goal is “to ensure that every parent and child has an advocate at the table.” “My love for education and the desire for all children to have their needs met has always been my priority as a teacher, an administrator and more importantly a mother,” Kierez said on Facebook last month. “I truly know for change to happen it has to start with those who seek change for the better good and our children’s education is the better good.” Voters also passed the Continued on Page 61
Former Congressman Lester Wolff dies at 102 PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SEWANHAKA CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Floral Park Memorial High School’s Ashley Hernandez was selected to have her art be featured in a countywide virtual exhibit last week.
Was catalyst for pushing through iconic social programs BY R OB E RT PELAEZ After a long public career in which he helped push through iconic social programs for the nation, former Congressman Lester Wolff has died at 102. He represented the North Shore from 1965 to 1981. Wolff, a Democrat who
was the oldest living person to have served in Congress, died on May 11. Wolff ’s son, Bruce, confirmed his father’s death to various news outlets but did not provide a cause of death. He died at a Syosset Hospital, according to reports. Efforts to reach a member of Wolff ’s family for comment were unavailing.
When Wolff was elected to the House of Representatives in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson was creating his Great Society and was tangled up with the Vietnam War. Wolff voted for the bill creating Medicare, the health insurance plan for those 65 and older, and later for the bill creating Continued on Page 50
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