Joanna Palumbo didn’t always envision herself with a life in government, or in East Williston. But that changed when life unexpectedly pushed her into her family’s path of public service.
“In 1997, we lost our mom. I was only 20 years old,” Palumbo said. “I was working in retail. My mother, even on her deathbed, was like, ‘Please go back to school for something else.’ After she died, I pivoted.”
Palumbo quit her job at the Fortunoff Department Store in her Westbury hometown and started studying public administration at CW Post while working as a legislative aide for then-state Assembly Member Maureen O’Connell.
“That’s really where I started getting involved,” Palumbo said.
She said her family had always been “very community oriented,” which was why Palumbo’s mother had felt so strongly about her getting involved, too: Her mother started the Saint Bridget’s food pantry, and her brother, Peter Cavallaro, is the Westbury mayor.
“I knew I liked helping people,” Palumbo said. “So, if I couldn’t do it in a retail setting, I figured this was a good crossover.”
Though it might seem like a big shift, she said her customer service and government roles are more similar than many may think.
“Customer service and constituent services go hand in hand. I mean, they’re almost identical,” Palumbo said. “Working as a legislative aide was just another form of customer service. It was almost a seamless transition because it was just solving their problems, hearing them, listening to what the issue was, and trying to find a resolution for them.”
However, she said she still had a lot to learn on her first day.
“I was green going into government and politics,” Palumbo said. “I think one of my first questions to Maureen was, ‘What’s a constituent?’ I had never heard that term before. But, really, it’s a customer, it’s a resident, it’s someone she represented. In that sense, it was very similar.”
Since working for the assembly, Palumbo has moved through many government roles, including serving as a legislative assistant for the Town of North Hempstead, court clerk for Plandome Manor Village and deputy village clerk and building department administrator for Sands Point Village, before becoming the East Williston village clerk in 2023.
She said she still takes lessons from her customer service days as she navigates through her daily government work.
“Throughout my municipal government career, I have always gone back to my Fortunoff training that the customer is always right, but in a slightly different manner: ‘the constituent wants to be heard,’” Palumbo said.
“Most residents don’t understand the differences between the federal, state, county, town or village government structures. For example, most don’t know that East Williston Avenue is a state road maintained by Nassau County…they just know there is a pothole and it needs to be repaired,” she continued. “Most often, they reach out to their closest form of government. At times like this, we don’t simply say it isn’t our problem. The staff and I at the village not only provide them with the contact information of the appropriate agency, but we also assure them that we will report the problem on their behalf.”
Since becoming the village’s clerk, she said some of her biggest accomplishments include upgrading the software systems used for finance, tax, utility and the building department and implementing a new mass notification system to communicate with village residents and increase transparency.
Palumbo called the new mass notification system “pinnacle,” because it allowed the village to communicate with residents in a targeted manner through both text and email, allowing her staff to communicate across “a bunch of different generations.”
“With this new system, I can text, I can email, I can send out a voice call. I can limit it to certain quadrants of the village residents, if there’s a leak that’s only affecting the northeast quadrant, I can only contact those people,” she said. “It’s a good tool to be able to pinpoint residents that need to be advised of something.”
She said her experience clerking at other villages has helped her improve the backend functioning of East Williston’s government.
“When I was in Sands Point, we had done the transition to this new software system, which I now implemented in East Williston,” she said. “What’s nice about the new software is that before, each department here had its own software…The new system is really tying them all together…It really helps all the departments work more cohesively.”
She said she’s also worked to renovate the village hall and the library, start a summer concert series and implement a new online sign-up system for the village’s recreation department.
As comes with the territory of clerking small villages, Palumbo said she does a little bit of everything every day.
“My day-to-day can vary drastically. Unlike larger villages that have separate departments such as purchasing, recreation, tax receiving and permitting, in a small village, everything gets done by only a handful of people,” Palumbo said. “I am responsible for everything from ordering the office supplies and creating the monthly newsletter to collecting taxes, creating new legislation and resolving resident complaints.”
However, she said her favorite part – and what’s kept her in government service for almost three decades – is simply helping people.
“I love helping people at a very local level,” Pulaumbo said. “Someone called today to say she had a bunny nest in her front lawn and asked what she should do. Now, the village can’t really help her. It’s on her front lawn. But just Googling possibilities and saying, ‘I’ll get back to you to help you,’ and meaning it, can help.”
“People just want to be heard and they want to know that someone’s listening to them,” she continued. “They may not always get the answer they want, but I’m able to let them know that we’re registering their complaint or listening to what they need. If we have a way to fix it, we will find a way to fix it.”
Pulambo can be reached at village hall at 516-746-0782.
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