Anna Bernasek to serve 3-year term on Amagansett school board after runoff election
Anna Bernasek will serve a full three-year term on the Amagansett school board and Hank Muchnic will complete the last year of a vacated term, district officials said in reporting results of a runoff election Tuesday.
Amagansett was one of two districts holding runoffs this week after candidates tied in the May 21 school board vote.
The Wantagh district will hold a runoff election Wednesday, with voting from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Wantagh High School. In that contest, Peter Mountanos and Laura Reich tied for second place in May and will vie for a board seat.
In the Amagansett district's vote in May, incumbent Kristen Peterson was re-elected, with 168 votes, and Bernasek and Muchnic tied with 151 votes each. The small East End district's board has five seats, elected at-large.
Bernasek, who got 17 votes Tuesday, has lived in the district for about 10 years and was appointed to the board last year to serve out the term of trustee Patrick Bistrian III, who resigned. She has two children, one enrolled in the district school and another who is a graduate of the district.
Muchnic, who got 16 votes, has lived in the district for more than 10 years and has served on the school board since 2016. He has two children in the district school and one who graduated from it.
The situation in Wantagh is different, with the runoff deciding who is elected to the board.
In the May 21 vote count, which included affidavit ballots, Mountanos and Reich each received 927 votes for the at-large seat, which carries a term of three years. Affidavit ballots are paper ballots used by voters whose names are not listed at their designated polling place.
Incumbent Kera McLoughlin, the top vote-getter, won the other open seat on the five-member board in May. Her updated total, including affidavit ballots, was 977.
Mountanos, a lifelong district resident and 2012 graduate of Wantagh High School, is the board president.
Reich, a 14-year Wantagh resident, has two children in district schools and two who graduated from Wantagh High and now are in college.
Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.
