Only write-ins running in Baxter Estates

Call it the village election that candidates forgot.

Seats for two trustees and the mayor are up for grabs in the 109-acre Village of Baxter Estates, but the ballot has no names.

It's not that people aren't interested in the two-year terms. They just didn't file the paperwork on time, village clerk Yvonne Whitcomb said.

So voters in this community of about 1,000 people along Manhasset Bay face a blank ballot.

"It will be a write-in vote election," Whitcomb said.

The interested candidates include current Mayor Frederick E. Nicholson and incumbent Trustee Charles Comer, who want to keep their positions.

James Neville -- the mayor from 2001 to 2005 who was ousted in an uncontested race by a surprise write-in candidate -- is looking to fill an open trustee seat.

Nicholson said time simply got away from him.

He started a new job Feb. 1. The candidacy petition, with 50 signatures, was due Feb. 8. He also wasn't sure he'd have time to devote to running the village and its $800,000 budget.

"Between me waffling and the clock not stopping, we just didn't get to it," said Nicholson, who became mayor in 2007 on a write-in campaign.

He said he wants to keep the job in order to complete the purchase and renovation of the Bird House, a surplus Port Washington Sewer District property.

"It will be interesting to see if there will be other people running," he said.

For potential candidates and voters, there are write-in rules: They must be residents of the village and they must be real. Mickey Mouse cannot be elected mayor. And if a resident is elected but does not want the job, he or she can decline the position, Whitcomb said.

After the polls close Tuesday, she will count the paper ballots and reveal the majority vote-getters as winners.

For details about contested races in village elections, go to Sunday's LI Life section of Newsday.