North Hills to hire Plandome Hts. clerk

Bill San Antonio

Plandome Heights Clerk-Treasurer Marianne Lobaccaro said Tuesday she will be leaving the village to accept the same position in the Village of North Hills.

Lobaccaro, who has served the Plandome Heights for the last three years, will succeed the retiring Nancy Ritirato, who held the position in North Hills since 1985. 

“It was a better opportunity for me,” Lobaccaro said. “I’m always looking to be more challenged. It’s a new system, a whole different system that I have to learn, but I had been looking for the opportunity for more professional growth and development.”

At the time of publication, Village of North Hills Mayor Marvin Nattis had not officially recommended Lobaccaro for the position, but he said she was the only candidate he would nominate at the board of trustees meeting Wednesday. 

“We interviewed several candidates, obviously we had a number of resumes,” Nattis said. “A lot of candidates we had, though, were coming from villages that had both a clerk and a treasurer, so they may have had clerk experience but not the treasurer, or some were treasurers but not clerks.”

Efforts to reach Plandome Heights Mayor Ken Riscica were unavailing.

Lobaccaro said she planned to start in North Hills on June 24, days before Ritirato’s retirement takes effect June 30, to acquaint herself with the village’s daily proceedings. 

Ritarito said Lobaccaro would have to learn the municipal computer software used in North Hills as well as a more complex village tax system and work with a budget nearly four times the size Plandome Heights’ budget.

“Her village is an extremely small village, and ours is much larger and it’s much more complicated,” Ritirato said. “I think her learning curve is going to be quite large.”

Nattis said he has confidence in Lobaccaro and added that “like any new job, there’s a learning curve,” but it would eventually subside.

“Marianne hasn’t held her position in Plandome Heights for very long, but she’s been both the clerk and treasurer, and we’ve explained to her that there will be a learning curve for probably a couple of months, but she’s very bright and very capable,” Nattis said. “We’ve had our clerk, Nancy Ritirato, for 28 years, and now that Nancy is retiring, there will certainly be an adjustment for us and an adjustment for Marianne because Nancy knew the village inside and out.”  

 

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