Joe was elected to the Sierra Madre City Council in April, 2006.  In April, 2007, Joe was elected by his fellow Council Members to the leadership position of Mayor-Pro-Tem.

In addition to his work on the Council, he represents the City's interest by participating regionally in the following organizations and agencies:

• Council Member, Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), San Gabriel Valley Service Sector Governance Council
• Vice Chair, Pasadena Unified School District, Management Audit Advisory Committee
• Alternate Member of Governing Board, San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments
• Member of Community, Economy, and Human Development Committee (CEHD), Southern California Association of Governments
• Member, Pasadena Unified School District, IT Working Group
• Member, League of California Cities, Environmental Quality Policy Committee

As a Council Member, he serves as the Council Liaison to Sierra Madre Elementary School and Sierra Madre Community Services Commission

More About Joe

We all love Sierra Madre for its wonderful charm and quality of
life that it provides us and our families.  Because of these reasons and
because of my up-bringing, Sierra Madre was the perfect fit for myself and my
family.

I was born and raised in a small town in Rhode Island into a great family with an older sister, a younger brother, two amazing parents, and an extended Italian family full of love and laughter.

From a young age, my family instilled in me the importance of community and
community service.  It is these values that I carry with me today as I
try to give back on behalf of myself and my family to our wonderful
community, Sierra Madre.

To tell you a little bit more about myself and my family growing up, my
family has been and still is very tight. My father and mother married
at a very young age and my father enlisted in the United States Air Force
and moved himself and my mother to Washington. They stayed there for 3
years, had my sister and myself, and then moved back to Rhode Island after he
finished his service to the Air Force. My father eventually started
his own business and now runs a successful auto repair shop in Providence,
Rhode Island.

My mother stayed at home with the children until I was around 10 years
old.  She worked hard raising three children with love, good values and
discipline; but she also managed to find time to volunteer at our
church, school, and be a Boy Scout Troop Leader. 

Her first job outside of our home was as a bank teller at a local bank, before she accepted a job with Blue Cross of Rhode Island, where she still works after 30 years of employment.  My mom is now contemplating retirement within the next few years, so she can keep up with my father's love of NASCAR, RV's, and traveling.

I think the best part about my childhood was the house that my family
grew up in.  The house, now owned by my parents, was built by my great-grandparents after they emigrated to the United States from Europe in the early 1900s. The house consisted of three levels with three separate apartments. At one time, my great grandparents lived on the 2nd floor of the house, my grandparents lived on the 1st floor with the five children (the youngest child being my father), and my great aunt (my grandfather’s sister) lived on the 3rd floor with her husband and three children. Eventually, my parents bought the house after my great-grandparents passed away, to keep it in the family.

Growing up, the house was always full of activity, but always full of
love and good Italian cooking.  My grandma (an amazing cook) and I were
very close growing up as she lived on the first floor while my family lived
on the second and third floors. She taught me how to be an analytical
thinker, and gave me a deep respect for family and community through
her example. While she is no longer with us, her love of community,
public service and people in general still inspire me and I carry her and her
thoughts with me forever.

My parents and grandma encouraged me to go to college and I was the
first person in my family to graduate from college. After graduation, I
worked for one year as a speech writer for the Rhode Island Senate Majority
Leader.  For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be an attorney, which I think was because many of the great leaders of our country had been legally trained and because the legal profession is a helping
profession.  So after a year of speech writing, I headed to law school in
Connecticut.

Law school was an incredible experience. It was a grueling, yet
intellectually stimulating experience. I decided to continue my
community and government involvement in law school as well, volunteering in local organizations, serving on the student governing Body as president of
the student body, and serving as editor of our law review during my second
and third years of law school.

After graduating from law school, I moved out to California because I thought it would be interesting to live in a place other than the northeast where I had lived almost my entire life.  Initially, I made my home in Sherman Oaks because of its proximity to my job, at that time, but eventually I found Sierra Madre after a Christmas party and absolutely fell in love with the community. I knew after moving to Sierra Madre that I would not be moving back to Rhode Island.

I continued my involvement in public and community service when I moved
to California. Since moving to California, I have been volunteering my
time at a low income legal clinic. I was very active with the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council and served as the Chairperson of Public Safety Committee.  As the Chairperson of the Public Safety Committee, I worked
closely with the local police department and fire department. I was a member of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association where we fought hard to make sure that the community was not over-developed.  I am a member of many other local community clubs.

Professionally, for about eight years now, I have been working as attorney in the area of insolvency law.  I work mostly with small businesses and individuals to aid them in achieving financial independence and overcoming financial hardships. I very much enjoy my work and really feel that I am making a difference for my clients.

Sierra Madre is my home and I deeply care about the issues facing our
community.