V.S. North votes to join Elmont Memorial Library

The Elmont Memorial Library will continue to be the official library for North Valley Stream residents, according to unofficial results from the May 5 vote.

Elmont received 159 votes at the polls, while the Henry Waldinger Memorial Library received 64, according to Town of Hempstead spokesperson Mike Deery. 105 absentee ballots were also submitted due to a problem with at least one voting machine. After a Nassau County Board of Elections review of names and addresses, 69 ballots were deemed eligible. Those have yet to be opened and tallied, Deery said, as the town is waiting to learn if the Waldinger Library wishes to have an attorney present at that time.

But the votes tallied so far already determine the outcome.

Roger Podell, director of the Elmont Memorial Library, which has a budget of $3.2 million, said he was glad that residents once again selected his as their home library.

“We’re very pleased with the results of the election, and we’re thrilled and excited to have five more years with our North Valley Stream patrons,” he said. “This money will be used to plan programming and events, to improve our staffing and buy new resources for our patrons to use while they are here.”

“We are obviously very disappointed with the results,” said Mamie Eng, director of the Waldinger Library. The library would have received $450,000 to supplement its $1.2-million budget if it had won, which would have been used to bolster programs and services.

“This will keep us from expanding the services and events we offer here,” Eng said. “We will not have to make any cuts or changes to events and services we are already offering. This just means that we will not be able to hold the events we would have liked to, and may have to offer more modest or limited services than we would have been able to with the extra money.”

One of those services is the new 3-D printing program. While it will still be offered as planned, the library will have to wait to purchase more equipment.