Four trustees returned to office

Village of Lawrence incumbents, Deputy Mayor Joel Mael and trustee Michael Fragin collected 82 and 85 votes, respectively in an uncontested election on Tuesday. There were 43 total write-in votes with David Seidemann getting 22 and David Neglander with 16.

Mael, who gained his fifth, two-year term, wants to focus on finding a new home for Peninsula Public Library, helping to ensure that the Nassau County Sewer Consolidation Project continues to progress and working on quality-of-life issues such as half-built, foreclosed or abandoned properties, the influx of flies and mosquitoes in the area and snow removal.

Mael, 54, is the vice chairman of the Florida Marlins and one of two founding partners of a merchant banking firm in New York City. He is married, has four children and has lived in Lawrence since 1988.

Gaining his second term, Fragin, 37, wants to create more openness and transparency on the board, including posting more information on the village’s website and make it possible for residents to pay their parking tickets online in the near future.

He also wants to stabilize the finances of the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club, which includes adding a second kosher caterer and settling litigation with Mezza on the Green restaurant that operates at the club.

Fragin, a real estate investor, who is married and has five children, also looks forward to the completion of the county’s Sewer Consolidation Project and to the village finding a use for the Lawrence sewer plant property.

In Atlantic Beach, longtime trustee Andrew J. Rubin garnered 46 votes and Danae Muddiman running for her first two-year term received 55. A total of 66 residents voted and there 18 write-in votes. Both candidates were unopposed.

Muddiman, 54, was appointed in January to replace Peter Blum, who stepped down from the board in the beginning of the year. She has lived in Atlantic Beach for the past 13 years and was serving on the village’s Zoning Board of Appeals for less than a year before Mayor Stephen Mahler appointed to her to the village board.

A businesswoman who runs Stefan’s Flowers in Lawrence, a longtime family enterprise, Muddiman said that working on repairing the roads, continuing to work with the Beautification Committee to maintain the beaches and ensuring the proper marine zoning would be her focus.

She has lived in North Woodmere, Hewlett and Lawrence and has an affinity for Atlantic Beach that she said motivates her to work hard for its residents.