Manorhaven Village Clerk Leslie Gross will be replaced by Deputy Village Clerk and Treasurer Sharon Abramski on July 1, village officials announced.
Gross, who was the village clerk for two years, said she was told by newly elected Mayor James Avena the day after the June 21 election that she would be replaced.
Gross said she doesn’t know why she is being let go, but was told she was “overqualified for the position.”
“I do not know where I will land next,” Gross said. “No prospects at the moment.”
Gross was the Town of North Hempstead clerk from 2007 to 2013. She lost to current Town Clerk Wayne Wink, then a Democratic Nassau County legislator. She then replaced former Manorhaven Clerk Liz Gaynor, who became the village clerk at Sands Point in Port Washington.
Gross received her bachelor’s in speech pathology and audiology at Ohio University, a master’s in education of the hearing impaired, and training as a master municipal clerk at Cornell University.
When asked why he was replacing Gross, Avena declined to comment.
Avena won the election on June 21, receiving 505 votes, defeating former Mayor Gary Pagano, who had 371.
Avena will be sworn in as mayor on July 6 at 7 p.m. at the board’s reorganization meeting, along with Trustees Priscilla von Roeschlaub, and Ken Kraft.
Efforts to reach Abramski were unavailing.
