Roslyn Area Village Elections: New Faces Join Incumbents

Voters in the Roslyn area went to the polls Wednesday in village elections that produced predictably thin turnout but still managed to shuffle the deck in meaningful ways, with several longtime officials stepping aside and new faces stepping in.

The numbers tell the story of village democracy at its most intimate. In Roslyn Harbor, incumbent Trustee James Friscia was reelected to a two-year term with 13 votes. Newcomer Lauren Archer won the second open seat with 17 votes, succeeding Trustee Abby Kurlender, who stepped down. Village Justice Charles Parisi was reelected with 16 votes for a four-year term.

With Roslyn Harbor’s population sitting at roughly 1,036 and approximately 777 eligible voters, those vote totals represent a fraction of the electorate. The math is stark. Most residents didn’t bother.

That’s not unusual for these hyper-local contests, but it does raise a fair question about democratic accountability when a handful of neighbors can determine who runs a village government. Unopposed races compound the problem. When candidates don’t face competition, there’s little incentive for voters to show up, and even less reason for candidates to make their case publicly.

Archer brings serious credentials to her new role. She spent 14 years in Goldman Sachs’s asset management division before moving to Prime Quadrant, a wealth management firm serving high-net-worth families, where she has worked for about 12 years. That kind of financial background isn’t typical for a village trustee, and it could prove useful as small municipalities wrestle with rising costs and tight budgets.

Over in the Village of Roslyn, the bigger story is the departure of Deputy Mayor Marshall Bernstein, who has served the village since 1996. He was first elected as a trustee thirty years ago and has held the deputy mayor post since 2006. That’s three decades of zoning decisions, budget fights, and community programs. Losing that institutional knowledge is never simple for a village, regardless of how capable his successor turns out to be.

Leslie Fitzpatrick won the open seat with 36 votes, running unopposed. Incumbent Trustee Craig Westergard secured reelection with 34 votes. Westergard, an architect with more than 30 years of experience, has made his mark beyond the boardroom table. He’s organized walking tours of the village’s historic district, the kind of civic engagement that earns goodwill and keeps a community connected to its past.

Village Justice Saul Klein was reelected with 31 votes.

Roslyn’s population is roughly 2,978, which puts those vote totals in sobering perspective. In a village of that size, 36 votes should not be enough to determine anything. But that’s the reality of local elections in March on Long Island. Most residents don’t know who their village trustees are, and many couldn’t pick the village justice out of a lineup.

In Roslyn Estates, Deputy Mayor Brian Feingold and Trustee Stephen Fox were both reelected to two-year terms. Feingold received 20 votes and Fox received 21. With a village population of 1,405, the turnout pattern holds.

The broader takeaway from Wednesday’s elections is that village government in this part of Nassau County runs almost entirely on civic volunteerism and community trust. These aren’t paid political careers. The people running for these seats generally do so because they care about their neighborhood and want to contribute. That deserves credit.

But low turnout in uncontested races also means limited scrutiny. Officials who never face a serious challenger have no electoral pressure to explain their decisions, answer hard questions, or justify spending. That’s a structural weakness, not a personal failing of anyone elected Wednesday.

Roslyn’s villages have real authority over zoning, local ordinances, and quality of life decisions that affect property values and daily living. Residents who ignore these elections shouldn’t be surprised when decisions get made without their input.

Congratulations to everyone who won a seat Wednesday. Now the real work starts. And maybe, by the next election cycle, a few more neighbors will notice.