At the end of last year, Mario Luciani formally retired as the Director of Public Works after many years with the Village. We thank Mario for all his years of service and wish him the best as he begins the next chapter in his life. To fill the shoes left by Mario, we recently promoted Tommy Machetti as the new Director of Public Works. Tommy was previously the Assistant Director and is well versed in all aspects of the department. We know he will do an outstanding job and wish him lots of success in his new role.
Earlier in 2011, our previous IT Manager, Mauricio Garcia, left the Village to work for a private company. Our Media Technician, Stan Wilkinson, immediately stepped up to the challenge to take over Mauricio's responsibilities. He did such a great job, that recently, we formally promoted Mauricio to the title of IT Manager and we will now be looking for a part-time media technician to fulfill Stan's prior responsibilities. Likewise, we know Stan will do an outstanding job and wish him lots of success in his new role.
In mid-December 2011, Deputy Clerk, Sherri Golden went out on a temporary medical leave. Her husband, Derek, was to be receiving a kidney transplant and Sherri, in turn, graciously and unselfishly volunteered to become a kidney donor for another individual. I am happy to share that both surgeries and recoveries were successful and Sherri will be returning to the Village on January 30.
Lastly, as everyone already knows, Village Administrator John Gross resigned in August and Reagan Burkholder has been acting as Interim Administrator while a search was underway for a new Administrator. After a thorough search, including numerous interviews, the BOT appointed Barry Lewis as our new Village Administrator on January 23 and he will be officially starting work on January 30. Barry comes to us from Mountain Lakes, where he served as their Administrator, and Spring Lake and Mine Hill before that. Mr. Lewis has a BA in Political Science from the University of South Florida and a Law degree from Florida State. In Mountain Lakes he created a budget in 2010 which had a 2% increase (but would have been 0% without the loss of state aid) and in 2011 had a 0% increase. He also successfully obtained more than $20M in grants and funding partnerships and negotiated many interlocal agreements during his tenure in Mountain Lakes, Spring Lake and Mine Hill. I welcome Barry to South Orange and look forward to working with him!
I hope everyone will joining me in congratulating all of these employees on their recent achievements!
