Serving Great Neck, G.N. Plaza, G.N. Estates, Kensington, Kings Point, Lake Success, Russell Gardens, Saddle Rock and Thomaston
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Friday, February 14, 2020
Vol. 95, No. 7
LIVING 50 PLUS
PLAZA TRUSTEES OK MIXED-USE PROJECT
CALL TO TRACK BAIL REFORM EFFECTS
PAGES 27-38
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PAGE 6
Celender will not seek re-election as Plaza mayor
THE WINNER IS...
Rosen, Katz to vie to lead the village BY R OB E RT PE L A E Z Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender will not run for re-election in March, according to filings submitted to the village by the Tuesday deadline. Celender began serving on the Board of Trustees in 1984 and was elected mayor in 2000. In 2013, Celender was granted full-time mayoral status, which resulted in a pay raise from $40,000 to $65,000 per year. She remains the lone full-time mayor among the nine Great Neck villages. Efforts to reach Celender for comment were unavailing. The race to fill her position as mayor of Great Neck Plaza features both a new and familiar face. One candidate, Ted Rosen, has been on the board since 1985 and has remained deputy mayor since 2000 when Celender appointed him to the position. Village Clerk Pat O’Byrne said Rosen will be running on the United Residents Party line.
Trustee Pam Marksheid and Board of Zoning Appeals member Michael Deluccia will also run on the United Residents Party line for trustee positions. In the mayoral race, Rosen will take on longtime Great Neck resident Leonard Katz, who is running on the Revive Great Neck Plaza party line. Residents Siu Long Au and Robert Farajollah are running on the same slate for trustee positions. The Revive Great Neck Party has laid out four objectives if elected: revitalizing the town, removing useless regulation, providing more information to residents and setting term limits for officials. In the Village of Great Neck Estates, Trustees Lanny Oppenheim and Howard Hershenhorn are running unopposed for reelection on the Better Government Party line. Hershenhorn began serving on the board in 2008 and Oppenheim began serving on the board Continued on Page 52
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GREAT NECK PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Students from South Middle School took home first and second place at the regional science bowl. See story on page 20.
Dying Madoff, 81, seeks early release from prison BY R O S E W E L D ON Bernard Madoff, a former Roslyn resident who has spent the last 11 years serving a 150year prison sentence, is asking a judge to release him due to terminal illness. Madoff, 81, who organized the largest Ponzi scheme in American financial history and lost $18 billion for investors in
his company Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, is requesting a “compassionate release” in order to die at home, citing kidney failure, a need for round-the-clock help and a life expectancy of less than two years. The Washington Post reported that Madoff had applied for such a release through the First Step Act, passed in 2018,
which expanded compassionate release for terminally ill prisoners over the age of 65. Madoff has been held in a federal prison in Butler, North Carolina, since he pleaded guilty to 11 counts of financial crimes in 2009, among them fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. The Post said he has been moved to palliative Continued on Page 61
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