______________ VALLEY STREAM _____________
your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
and JUNE 29, 2023
with a focus on:
MEN’S
HERALD looK INSIdE YoUR HEAlTH
Men’s Health Vol. 34 No. 27
A salute to the sports champs
Senator pitches anti-fentanyl bill
Page 6
Page 8
JUNE 29 - JUlY 5, 2023
$1.00
Congrats, Class of 2023
Courtesy Valley Stream Central High School District
VAllEY STREAM NoRTH High School graduates, resplendent in their Spartan green caps and gowns, at commencement on June 22. Story, additional photo, Page 22.
District 24 parents complain of confusion over voting sites By JUAN lASSo & CARolINE KEllY of the Valley Stream Herald
The school board elections are over, but weighing on several voters’ minds in Valley Stream District 24 is a common cloud of confusion and commotion that defined their voting experience. Each voter’s circumstances may be unique, but they all circle back to one core issue: residents and parents, upon arriving at their customary polling place, were directed to another voting location. Residents like Michael Belfiore and his wife, Ellen, who rarely skip a school board election, wanted to get their votes in early.
Heeding the election information card mailed to them by the teachers’ union, which specified the Corona Avenue Fire House as a polling place, they opted to go there the morning of the election in lieu of their usual spot at Brooklyn Avenue School. When pollsters couldn’t find their names on the voter registration list, they drove to their customary voting spot at Brooklyn Avenue only to be redirected — once again — to William L. Buck School. “It was really annoying,” Belfiore said. Though he says he was partly to blame for this perplexing situation, “not having read the card information close
enough.” He said fellow parents and residents also found themselves in a similar snafu, traveling to Brooklyn Avenue only to be told their designated polling spot was somewhere else. Others, like parent Jeanette Gonzales, traveled to Corona Avenue Fire House, where she has voted for several election cycles. She was puzzled to find it closed. “I thought, maybe it’ll open later on to accommodate people who are working,” Gonz ales said. “I went back around 5 p.m. to the firehouse and it was desolate,” she added. “And there was no sign whatsoever to direct people on where to find the proper
polling place.” She chalked up her uncertainty to a faulty poll-finding link posted on the district’s website, which she claims directed her to the New York State Board of Elections poll tracker. The tracker provided information on her designated polling site for county and statewide government elections, even though she was
searching for her designated school board polling spot. Inquiring through Facebook and her personal contacts, she was eventually sent a link to the district’s dedicated poll-finding website that directed her to cast her ballot at Brooklyn Avenue School. That’s when she realized her designated polling place for Continued on page 24