In this week's issue we feature a letter by Nancy Zolezzi, Mayor of East Williston and President of the Nassau County Village Officials Association regarding the importance of local government to the quality of life for residents. We agree with her wholeheartedly. In our newspaper chain, which operates throughout Nassau County, we have seen marked differences in the way government services are delivered to residents who live in villages and those who don't. The simple reason why this is so is because residents of villages know that if they have a problem they can take it right to the Village Board (or in the case of Garden City, the Property Owners Associations) and they will be heard. The folks sitting up on the podium are volunteers and neighbors, not some giant bureaucracy.

Some people will see in the lengthy coverage of the village budget the fact that there might be a large tax increase in village taxes this year. This is entirely true -- the village faces unprecedented challenges this year, as do all of the other municipalities in the state. But what we hope readers will see from our coverage is that the Village departments working in coordination with each other to mitigate the damage as much as possible. We get the sense from the different department heads that they are all in this together.

And if you don't like what they're doing, feel free to head over to the next budget session and put in your own two cents. They'll at least listen to you -- that's the great thing about a village.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher