Four candidates on the ballot for two V.S. village trustee seats

Vincent Grasso

Age: 42
Occupation: Executive director, Nassau County Bridge Authority
Family: Wife, Mary, and daughter, Isabella
Education: Stony Brook University: B.A. Post-graduate studies at Defense Intelligence Agency, National Defense Intelligence University
Party: United Community Party
Years in the village: 17
Experience: Village trustee. 20-year veteran of the military Reserves; commissioned officer in the United States Naval Reserve; executive director of the Nassau County Bridge Authority; former trustee of the Gibson Civic Association; member of Valley Stream VFW Post 1790.

Vincent Grasso said his party’s campaign has focused on “the continuation of the work we’ve been doing,” and doing it while maintaining a low village debt rating and using less reserve funds.

“In recreation, we’ve moved light years ahead,” said Grasso, who emphasized improvements to infrastructure like the dog park, skate park, pool and the all-weathering of the Community Center. 

Grasso said the village has “a series of pockets that are begging to be revitalized,” among them the area around Village Hall that the mayor wants to turn into a “village campus.”

He said healthy development of the community is vital to its long-term viability, with four major projects in the works that he expects will contribute to a “residency life cycle” in the village, which provides suitable housing for each stage of residents’ lives — affordable, dense housing for young people leaving their parents’ homes, single-family homes where people can raise families, and enough affordable, dense housing to accommodate older folks who want to downsize once their children leave the home. This gives residents the options needed to remain in the village throughout their lives, he said, and to attract new residents who want the appeal of easy city access combined with a suburban lifestyle.