New Hyde Park Deputy Mayor Bids Farewell to Former Editor

The following are the remarks of New Hyde Park Deputy Mayor Robert Lofaro made during the public meeting of the New Hyde Park Village Board on Sept. 18, 2012:

Change is good and we on the board have to remember that, not only with Ruth (Kiernan)’s departure but unfortunately we have other news of a departure that has impacted the entire board – a very close friend of ours, Maggi Whitely, who had been the editor of The Illustrated News for many years, has been relieved of her position as the newspaper goes in a different direction.

Maggi sat up front for at least the 14 years that Rich Coppola and I have been on the board and the 12 that Larry (Montreuil) has and Maggi sat there long before we were even on the board. Maggi was not only the editor of the Illustrated News, Maggi was part of the village family. She was part of the fabric of this community. Her reporting was accurate, it was timely, it was insightful, it was the information that the residents needed to know and we are beside ourselves in the fact that Maggi is no longer going to be reporting the happenings of the Village of New Hyde Park to the subscribers of The Illustrated News.

We met an individual who will be, I’m not going to say replacing her, but will be filling the void and we all said the same thing: we apologized to the individual and said he’s got very big shoes to fill. But Maggi is certainly going to be missed and really represented the village in the most positive way.

When there were things to report that were negative, she did as well I will tell you her reporting and facts were always 100 percent accurate and if she didn’t get the story quite right she was on the phone with Cate (Hillmann) or Janet (Bevers) or Ruth or Tom (Gannon) making sure that the facts were absolutely right and some of her peers are here as well and we all got to know Maggi and she was part of the family and she’ll be missed.

Hopefully we’re going to be able to put something together and invite Maggi to a meeting where we could formally recognize her for all the work that she’s done, but I did want to say that we have to continue to read change is good and hopefully we can move forward with that.