Village of East Hills election gets nasty

One side in the tussle to take control of the Village of East Hills says their opponents are ill-prepared to run the municipality and have violated conflict-of-interest laws.

The other side says the current village leadership is financially irresponsible and has run afoul of conflict-of-interest laws.

In a place where campaigns have historically been quiet and reserved affairs, the back-and-forth sniping leading up to the March 15 elections is unusual for this village of 6,800 wedged between Roslyn and Old Westbury.

"A lot of issues have been brought up, some of them in a not nice way," said Judi Winters, who moderated a candidates forum last month at Bryant Library. "Some of them are non-issues. Some are valid."

Emotions reached such a level at the forum that Winters asked for police presence because of the rowdy nature of the crowd.

"It did get acerbic and there were attacks," she said. "This is going to be a very highly contested and a very close race."

Two competing party slates are running candidates for mayor and two trustee seats: the Unity Party of current Mayor Michael Koblenz and incumbent trustees Gary Leventhal and Peter Zuckerman against the East Hills Advocacy Group, which includes mayoral hopeful Matthew Weiss and trustee candidates Gregg Resnick and Jonathan Penn.

At stake is the leadership of this village, where 49.9 percent of households earn more than $200,000 and only 1.4 percent of families are in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

This week, the incumbents sent out a mailer titled "Us vs Them" highlighting their accomplishments and criticizing the challengers.

They also said this week that the East Hills Advocacy Group slate had failed to file on time the proper financial-disclosure forms with the village.

"If the failure to file was just caused by neglect, then it . . . poses the question of how they could possibly run the village," Koblenz said in a statement.

Charles Casolaro, treasurer of the East Hills Advocacy Group, acknowledged they filed the required forms late but called it a nonissue.

The challengers claim the town is financially irresponsible and the village violated conflict-of-interest laws when hiring a Uniondale law firm where Koblenz's son Adam was part of a team of attorneys representing the village.

"You're not supposed to be taking advantage of the village coffers," Weiss said.

But the mayor said Rivkin Radler, where his son worked, is one of six firms the village uses.

"We didn't break any laws," Koblenz said. "We hired the best firm to do the work and it has nothing to do with my son. There is no conflict. There is no benefit to me."

Adam Koblenz no longer works for Rivkin Radler.

The incumbents charge that their challengers have no political experience and that it is Weiss who has a conflict of interest because he represents a client suing the village for $1 million.

Weiss said he withdrew from the case this week.

"It was to eliminate any question that I have conflict," he said.