Village resident, 20, enters mayor's race

At 20 years old, Michael Leboff wants to be the next mayor of Rockville Centre, even though he thinks the village has few existing problems.

"If you talk to most people in the town, the biggest inconvenience is parking," the Sacred Heart University junior said. "There aren't really any huge issues."

Leboff acknowledged that doesn't give him much of a platform. Last week he collected most of the 100 signatures needed to get on the June 21 ballot, he said.

"I thought, 'Why not?' I've lived in the town for 20 years. I love the town," he said. "Why not get someone who is a regular, ordinary person in there?"

He said his experience includes working at his church, writing entertainment news for a Connecticut website and being a stand-up comedian.

Leboff joins a race that includes one-term incumbent Mayor Mary Bossart and small- business owner Francis X. Murray, whose father, Eugene Murray, was the village mayor from 1987 to 2007. Bossart and Murray are each three times as old as Leboff.

Bossart, whose parents live on the same block as Leboff's family, said she's never met him and declined to comment on his candidacy. Should she win re-election, Bossart said, her primary concern will be "fiscal stability."

Murray also declined to speak about Leboff, but said of the young man's campaign: "It's America. It's a wonderful thing."

Leboff has a campaign manager and Facebook page. And he's promised to run a clean race. "We're making a promise not to run anything negative against either of the other candidates," he said. "They're both wonderful people."

Leboff, who can't have a beer with a constituent until he turns 21 on April 27, isn't Long Island's youngest-ever candidate. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli was elected to the Mineola school board at 18.

If he wins the election, Leboff said, he'll move in with his parents and seek to complete his degree without returning to Sacred Heart in Connecticut. As mayor, he said, he would hold regular town hall-style meetings, have lunch daily with local kindergarten classes and open Village Hall to elementary school students for afternoon study hall sessions.

"We're going to find out what the people truly want and hang out with them," he said.