Making history in their community

With this, our last Women’s History Month installment honoring those who have made significant contributions to Malverne and West Hempstead history, we explore the many benefits brought to our communities by Malverne Mayor Patricia McDonald and Lakeview Fire Commissioner Heather Senti.

Mayor Patricia McDonald

Having served in Malverne government for more than 17 years, the mayor is a lifelong resident of the village, with the exception of a few years she spent in Manhattan. She has helped secure grants totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars for numerous improvement and beautification projects throughout Malverne, but she is quite humble about it. “No one is looking for a pat on the back when we do these things … we just do them,” she said recently.

The grants — and the benefits they’ve brought the village — are just one part of McDonald’s laundry list of accomplishments. During the Long Island Rail Road cutbacks on the West Hempstead line’s weekend service in 2010, she attended regular meetings in Nassau and Suffolk counties as well as Manhattan in an effort to restore the service. “I really believe if we hadn’t kept talking about it, they would’ve said it wasn’t such a big deal, and they would’ve cut back a little bit more and a little bit more, until it was gone,” she said. “I really don’t think they understood the gravity of that situation,” she added, referring to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

When a public hearing for condo development in the unincorporated area of Malverne was being sought, McDonald made sure her dissatisfaction was heard in Town Hall. And when the Malverne Volunteer Ambulance Corps needed a building for its operations, she worked through heated negotiations with the group and even secured a $60,000 grant to help with the cost.

But it isn’t only the major endeavors that set McDonald apart. Residents have reported seeing her picking up trash in the street and in the flower planters, giving goody bags to children who come to visit Village Hall and donating significant time and money to numerous charitable causes without drawing attention to herself.

The grants she has helped secure include:

• Renovations of the Malverne train station