Nassau County's many villages are stronger together

In 1925, Nassau County's villages faced a crisis that could not be solved by a single village mayor, alone. The major increase in automobile use severely overwhelmed streets that were not designed to handle that heavy traffic. The mayors of Freeport, Lynbrook, Rockville Centre and Hempstead held a meeting at the Freeport Fire Department headquarters to address their common challenge and formed the Nassau County Village Officials Association as a result.

Today, 100 years later, as villages struggle with volunteer fire department recruitment challenges, rising municipal costs, mental health crises and failing stormwater systems, it is just as apparent that villages must move forward cooperatively to resolve critical matters.

The founding mayors of the NCVOA understood that by working together they could more readily effectuate meaningful change. In the case of the 1925 traffic dilemma, through the NCVOA they were able to create consistent traffic laws and advocate with a unified voice when seeking resources from Albany. It is the collective effort that is able to move policy and secure the funding necessary to address pressing issues.

Village leaders today confront different but equally complex challenges that demand the same collaborative approach. The 2% tax cap handicaps villages' budget processes and puts unprecedented pressure on municipal budgets.

Volunteer fire departments across Nassau are facing major functional problems as they cannot retain members and recruitment numbers are declining year over year. School districts report an increasing need for mental health services that are otherwise unavailable to access through the villages due to a lack of resources, both financial and professional. Long Island's aging stormwater infrastructure has had an increasing number of failures during major storms that flood homes and businesses across multiple communities.

Stormwater management is the perfect example of why villages must work together. When a major storm hits Nassau County, the flooding doesn't stop at village borders. Water flows from one community to another through interconnected drainage systems. A village might spend millions upgrading its own infrastructure, but if neighboring communities can't handle the runoff, the flooding continues. The solution requires regional planning, shared resources and coordinated maintenance.

The same reality applies to most challenges villages face today. State mandates that strain municipal budgets hit every local government equally. Fire departments throughout the county compete for the same shrinking pool of volunteers. When villages tackle these problems individually, they waste resources and achieve limited results.

Over the past century, the NCVOA has proven that cooperation works. More than 800 monthly meetings have allowed village leaders to share solutions and present a unified voice to county, state and federal officials. When 64 mayors speak with one voice, legislators pay attention in ways they simply don't when individual villages make requests.

The 2026 legislative session offers a crucial opportunity for villages to capitalize on this collective strength. Nassau's communities need tax relief to ease budget pressures, infrastructure funding to repair aging systems, and regulatory reform to reduce compliance costs that hit smaller municipalities particularly hard. A single mayor's phone call to Albany might get a polite response. Sixty-four mayors making the same demand together can change policy.

This centennial isn't just about celebrating the past; it's about recognizing what villages must do to thrive in the future. Today's village leaders face the same choice their predecessors made a century ago: work together effectively or struggle alone unsuccessfully.

The problems have changed, but the fundamental truth remains the same. Villages that collaborate find solutions. Villages that go it alone struggle to provide for their residents.

The first hundred years of the NCVOA show that cooperation delivers results for residents. The next century depends on village leaders staying committed to that same principle, because the challenges facing Nassau County's communities today are too big and too complex for any village to handle on its own.

This guest essay reflects the views of Elena Villafane, who is president of the Nassau County Village Officials Association and mayor of the Village of Sea Cliff.