Amityville pols on horseback for parade

The mayor and four village trustees will be on horseback or the Amityville Fourth of July parade, Mayor Peter Imbert says.

When he first took office 14 years ago, Imbert recalled, the trustees marched near the front of the parade and waved.

“It was boring. We’d just follow a flag,” he said. “So I came up with the idea that we should ride horses, and the guys liked it.”

Trustees pay their own way, $200 per horse.

Imbert says he's a good good rider as is retired trustee Joe Slack. But trustees Ed Johnson and Richard Ubert and vice mayor Peter Casserly “aren’t that accomplished,” he say.

As for Dennis Siry, who filled Slack’s seat last spring: “It’s his first time, and I don’t know if he’s ever ridden a horse,” Imbert said.

The parade is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Monday at South Bayview and MacDonald avenues.

It will head north on South Bayview, across Merrick Road and north on Bayview Avenue before it turns west onto Avon Place, then north on Broadway and west to Oak Street, ending at the main firehouse.