Louisa Ingrassia: “It’s my whole life.”
TOWN OF WALLKILL – Louisa Ingrassia has been Wallkill town clerk
since 2003; she started her service with the town in 1988 in the receiver
of taxes office.
This year, she was chosen by her 931 peers in the state Town Clerks Association
as town clerk of the year.
She had “no clue” that she would be selected. Her first honor
was when the Mid-Hudson regional clerks’ group chose her as clerk
of the year. “It was a great honor and I didn’t anticipate
that. That was one of the best things that ever happened to me,”
she reflected. When she was named state town clerk the following day in
April, “I was shocked.” When she received the regional award,
she told her friends that she hoped she was not getting any other awards
because “I don’t like being the center of attention.”
They told her she would be fine and laughed.
It turned out that she was seated at a table right up by the dais at the
annual dinner. “I have been to enough of these conferences to know
something was up. It was beyond anything I could imagine; one of the best
things that could ever happen to me.”
Louisa comes from a long line of members of the Ingrassia family to serve
the community.
Her brother, Louis, Jr., has worked for the town for years, starting out
as a laborer in the public works department. He is now DPW commissioner.
Their mother, Dorothy, was receiver of taxes for 30 years until her retirement
at 81.
Ingrassia family service went beyond mother and two children. Louisa and
Louis’ father, the late Louis Ingrassia, served during his career
as a Middletown school board member, a member of the Wallkill Town planning
and zoning boards, as a New York State assemblyman and Wallkill highway
superintendant.
Louis Sr.’s brother, Angelo Ingrassia, was an assistant district
attorney, district attorney, county court judge retired as a state Supreme
Court justice.
Serving as Wallkill town clerk is Louisa Ingrassia’s “whole
life, I love it here.”
She is seeking re-election unopposed this fall.
