By Joseph Domelowicz Jr. and Seth Daniel
A City Council committee has interviewed eight candidates for the City Clerk position and will recommend three of those candidates to the full body for a possible decision at the Aug. 3 Special Meeting.
The candidates recommended, according to some Committee members are:
- Sergio Cornelio, current assistant City Clerk.
- Angelo Febbo, current member of Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s Constituent Services team.
- Linda Greeley.
The City Council Legislative Affairs and Elections Committee met Monday night and immediately took a vote to go into Executive Session, for the purposes of interviewing applicants for the position of City Clerk.
The Independent had previously reported that six candidates had applied for the position prior to the July 19 deadline, but the Council Clerk confirmed this week that the number of applicants had actually risen to eight – all of whom were scheduled to be interviewed in Executive Session at the July 24 subcommittee meeting.
The Legislative Affairs Committee has been charged with initial screening and first interviews of all qualified applicants and with making a recommendation to the full City Council. The Council is scheduled to meet on Thursday , August 3 to accept the recommendation and possibly vote on appointing a new City Clerk. Whether that meeting includes a second round of interviews or simply a vote on a recommendation of the committee, will depend on how the committee proceeds next week.
The eight applicants for the position were named on the agenda for the subcommittee meeting and listed in the order of their interviews, which coincided with their order their applications were received in the Council Clerk’s office.
The applicants include Daniel Pendenza*, a one-time staff member of former New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte and Assistant City Clerk Sergio Cornelio, who was appointed by the Council to be the Acting City Clerk during the search process. They were the first two candidates to be interviewed Monday evening.
The other applicants, in order of their interviews were Mayoral Staff member Angelo Febbo, Linda Greeley, Susan A. Scialoia, Althea Lewis, Jolette Lynn Yutkins and Harvey William Lever II.
The Legislative Affairs Committee, which was charged with reviewing and interviewing the applicants for the job, is chaired by longtime City Clerk and former Mayor John Hanlon. Councilors Peter Napolitano, Michael McLaughlin and Cynthia Sarnie round out the Legislative Affairs and Election Committee.
McLaughlin said the decision to recommend three applicants was a hard decision, and that no one should assume that anyone has the position.
“This was a very tough round of interviews and anyone who thinks the decision has been made is sadly mistaken,” he said. “We had a tremendous field of applicants. All of them were qualified and good candidates, and the three we have identified are particularly impressive in interviews with us on Monday. I, for one, have a lot of homework to do on this over the next week, as this is no easy decision.”
*Editor’s note – In last week’s initial story on the City Clerk search and candidates, Pendenza was misidentified as Daniel Auger, due to a reporting error. We regret the error.