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Overcast Guido Cirenza, 1923-2009
Village mourns loss of deputy mayor
Guido Cirenza, who dedicated the last 14 years of his life to public service, died on Oct. 6 at Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre, with his family by his side. He was 85.
Cirenza ultimately lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, but after being diagnosed in January, he survived well beyond the three months doctors expected him to live.
Those close to Cirenza remember him as an honest man who put family above himself. “Guido was a great guy,” Mayor Ed Cahill said. “It’s a tremendous loss.”
Cahill and Cirenza were elected together as village trustees in 1995, along with then Mayor Jim Darcy and Village Justice Bob Bogle. The four ran together on the United Community Party ticket.
Valley Stream was a polarized village at the time, Darcy recalled. The United Community Party was formed to bring together people from all areas of the village with differing political viewpoints. Cirenza was a Democratic zone leader from the village’s west end, Cahill a conservative from the south side, Darcy a Republican from the north end and Bogle a Republican from the central area. “We made a conscious effort to form the United Community Party where we wanted it to be representative of the village as a whole,” Darcy said. “Guido, through his involvement in many organizations, we felt was a very integral part in what we wanted to do.”
Former Mayor John DeGrace, who helped put together the 1995 ticket, said Cirenza proved to be the right man for the job and never played partisan politics. “He put the village before everything else,” DeGrace said.
When Cahill became mayor in 1999, Cirenza was chosen as deputy mayor. Cahill said the choice was easy because Cirenza had a strong knowledge of what was going on in the village and had the time to devote to the position.
Darcy went on to the state Assembly and eventually the Hempstead town board. Cahill, Cirenza and Bogle ran together successfully three more times, most recently in 2007. “He was a great addition to our team, a very knowledgeable man,” Cahill said of Cirenza. “He was in the village longer than myself.”
