We have a winner!

Lanning elected to Sanitation District 7 board

Posted

Oceanside’s long sanitational nightmare is over.

The Sanitation District 7 board swore in Tom Lanning as its newest commissioner on Aug. 20, ending two months of legal wrangling, including an appearance before the Nassau County Supreme Court.

“I know a lot of people stood by me and it is much appreciated,” Lanning wrote on his Facebook page. “I thank you all. As discouraging as it was at times, it only made me want to move forward in [a] ferocious but patient manner. I look forward to serving you in my newly elected position.”

District 7 commissioners voted unanimously to certify the June 19 election one week after State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Diamond reviewed 184 paper ballots that had been collected on Election Night but had gone uncounted, in part because voters’ anonymity was threatened when the ballots were sealed in the same envelope with residents’ registration slips. Certifying the election was also delayed by an irregularity in voting: One of the machines showed that as many as 140 more people entered the booth than cast ballots.

Lanning led opponent Mike Franzini by a count of 837-739, with Steve Edmondson receiving 12 votes, on the night of the election. The paper ballots were sealed in a box and placed in a cabinet at the district office, to be counted at a later date.

The district planned to count them on June 25, a week after the election, but when candidates arrived at the district office that morning, Jerome Cline, an attorney for the district, told them about the irregularity. The count was put on hold, and the board of commissioners hired Uniondale-based attorney Jack Libert to investigate the election and help them determine how to proceed.

Libert asked the board to arrange a meeting with the candidates, hoping that they could negotiate a settlement without having to go to court. But on July 23, Lanning filed an injunction through his attorney, John Mannone, that called for the paper ballots to be counted and the election certified. The paper ballots were unsealed and counted in Nassau Supreme Court on Aug. 13. The results favored Franzini, 116-60, with Edmondson picking up an additional vote. Another seven votes were disqualified. That brought the final tally to 897-855, with Lanning winning the vote by just over 2 percentage points.

After the count, Diamond said he did not have the legal authority to declare a winner, but urged the district to do so.

The board called a special meeting for Aug. 20, at which commissioners voted in an executive session to certify the election. Lanning was sworn in later that day.

He takes the post of retiring commissioner Fred Morse, and joins Chairman Joseph Cibellis, Florence Mensch, Christopher Powers and Edward Scharfberg. The post pays $7,500 per year.