DEAR EDITOR:

I hope to take a moment of your time to publicly recognize an above-and-beyond job done by one of your elected officials, Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Michael Ciccone. Yesterday, I contacted Mr. Ciccone’s office later in the afternoon, attempting to procure naturalization information from the early 1900s. After speaking with Mr. Ciccone, he took it upon himself to go to a different building and personally look for the documents I needed, well after business hours had concluded, presumably on his own time.

While searching, we remained in constant contact, with him updating me constantly. Even after I was losing hope that the documents existed, Clerk Ciccone continued looking, eventually finding what I needed after approximately 3-4 hours of searching non-digitized files, index cards and log books.

As a retired public servant from another state, it was truly a wonderful thing to see an elected official take the time for a citizen, and I can only think that this is the level of work he puts in daily. In my opinion, he is a prime example of what government and elected officials should be: advocates and people willing to help people.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if there is a way to commend Mr. Ciccone, please do so on my behalf and the others who will benefit from the work and care he put into my request.

DONALD GANNON

Carmel, New York