When Village of Mineola Clerk Joseph Scalero became president of the Long Island Village Clerk and Treasurers Association in June, he said it was a measure of Mineola’s ascendancy during his time in office.
“It’s really a tremendous honor. It’s a recognition by your peers,” Scalero said in a recent interview. “When you come to people’s attention it’s because of your village. In the nine years I’ve been here, we’ve made great strides.”
Scalero, 47, had experience in federal, state and county government when state Sen. Jack Martins, then mayor of Mineola, offered him the job as village clerk in 2005.
Scalero had recently finished an 18-month stint as assistant director of the bipartisan redistricting commission under Nassau County Supervisor Thomas Suozzi.
“I was without a job for the first time in a long time. And this job was open,” he said.
Scalero said he submitted his resume and Martins invited him to have coffee. Martins, he said, laid out a sobering description of the dire financial straits Mineola was in, saying things were in worse shape than he expected when he became mayor.
But, Scalero said, Martins also described his long term plans to reduce debt and revitalize the village.
“He mapped out a litany of problems. I should have run right there,” Scalero said. “But what got me was that sense of public service. This was his village. He wanted to right the ship and he had a vision. That’s what made it worth doing.”
He said Martins pushed to draft a master plan to develop the downtown Mineola area.
In 2007, Scalero said a property revaluation of the village eventually helped to reduce what had been $2 million in annual tax appeals to $250,000 last year and the village is now solidly in the black.
Scalero said his job as village clerk is the most satisfying one he’s had because the results from the actions the village trustees bear immediate results.
“Village government is the closest form of government to the people. We are a service organization. We provide the services people need on a daily basis,” he said. “And everything that happens in the village at some point touches on the clerk’s office.”
In terms of the village’s financial resuscitation, Scalero said he’s been happy to play a supporting role.
“We each have a role to play but the vision comes from the top,” he said.
He said Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss and the other trustees are non-political residents who are simply looking to do the best they can for the community. And he said Strauss, like Martins, makes what is a part-time job a full-time occupation.
In Scalero’s view, public service is about putting the needs of the community first. He said he takes inspiration from Theodore Roosevelt, whose portrait hangs in his Village Hall office.
“He never shied away from doing what he thought was best,” he said.
Scalero said he was seeking a public service career when he majored in political science and history with a minor in economics at Hobart College.
“I think that I saw public service as the greatest way to effect change,”he said, recalling Roosevelt’s admonition to engage in “the arena.”
He worked in Washington, D.C. in his first job out of college in 1989 as a Congressional aide for Ray McGrath, former representative from Valley Stream. He subsequently worked in a series of positions in Washington over the next two years.
Scalero said he then worked briefly as chief financial officer for a small telecom company in New York City, but left the private sector in 1994.
He worked for six years in constituent services for Nassau County Supervisor Tom Gulotta and then became chief of staff for Nassau County Clerk Maureen O’Connell when she was elected to the state Assembly.
Scalero has lived in Williston Park since 1998, after marrying his wife, Colleen.
He said he met O’Connell when she was working in village government in East Williston.
“She has a tremendous respect for people, their quality of life and sense of community. She is a tremendous person,” he said. “People can tell who the empty suits are.”
In addition to his work for the village, Scalero is past president and member of the Long Island Development Organization, comprised of public and private development agencies.
Scalero also does service as a member of the board of directors for a summer camp for children at risk.
“That comes from a natural outcropping of how I was raised,” he said.
His mother, Elizabeth, set an example for he and his five siblings in lending assistance to others in need and taught her children to do likewise, he said.
“We were just always taught you should be helping others first,” Scalero said.
