V.S. students named mayors for a day

Valley Stream Mayor Ed Fare stood in the foundation of a new sun and shade deck at the Hendrickson Park Pool while he explained the ongoing construction to Lauren Flynn and Brandon Dikeman, Valley Stream’s mayors for a day.

Brendan Murray/Herald

Superintendent of buildings Tom McAleer showed the young mayors the blueprints for the judge’s chambers and conference room on the upper floor of the new village courthouse on Rockaway Avenue.

Brendan Murray/Herald

Valley Stream Mayor Ed Fare presented Brandon Dikeman, a sixth-grader at Holy Name of Mary School, and Lauren Flynn, a sixth-grader at Wheeler Avenue School, with proclamations officially naming the pair Mayors for a Day.

Brendan Murray/Herald

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While shoppers rushed to malls and local shops for Black Friday deals, two local kids were treated to a grand tour of Valley Stream with Mayor Ed Fare, had the opportunity to conduct village business and checked out some of the village’s larger projects as Mayors for a Day.

“It was really cool to see what the mayor does each day,” said Lauren Flynn, a sixth-grader at Wheeler Avenue School. “I really learned what Mayor Fare does each day, and how many different things he has to be in charge of. It’s a lot of work.”

Lauren and Brandon Dikeman, a sixth-grader at Holy Name of Mary School, were selected after winning an essay contest earlier this year. Each wrote a 250-word essay on the duties of the mayor, and both highlighted the mayor’s role in keeping residents informed about what happens in the village.

“The Mayor of the Incorporated Village of Valley Stream does many things for the people,” Brandon wrote. “In Village Hall, he tries his best to keep the lines of communication open. He frequently updates our website. He sends important alerts by text message or phone call when there is something interesting to share.”

The day started at Village Hall, where Lauren and Brandon sat at Fare’s desk and received official proclamations naming them temporary mayors. The group headed to the village’s sanitation facility at Arlington Yard, where they took charge of the first garbage dump of the day.

The pair first spoke to truck drivers by radio to find out whether they were carrying recyclable materials. Then they weighed the trucks on a computerized scale and registered the trucks’ numbers and cargo type before telling the drivers which dumpsite to proceed to.

Next, the temporary mayors were given a ride on one of the garbage trucks to a dumpsite, where they climbed down and helped sanitation workers pull the levers to dump the trucks’ garbage into a large pit.

Lauren said that working with the large machinery was the highlight of her day. “I really liked seeing how everything worked at the yard,” she said. “I never really thought about where our garbage goes, so I learned a lot there about how our trash gets put away.”