Village general election 2023: Bonelli wants more thoughtful government

Anthony Bonelli spent decades of his working life across various city services, optimizing systems, and improving standards of transparency, efficiency, and integrity. Now he hopes to bring his managerial eye to Village Hall come March 21, straight from the desk of the mayor.

The lifelong Valley Stream resident already has put his background in information technology and engineering to use, serving as a project manager for New York City’s sanitation department, developing a computer-based system that produced detailed vehicle accident summary reports for frontline supervisors to lower accident rates.

Bonelli helped modernize the reporting system as the information technology director at the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board in 1998. Then, a few years later, he was managing network operations at the New York Police Department pension fund.

Nowadays Bonelli dedicates his time as a trustee on the Valley Stream District 13 education board, a position he won in 2021 after a pair of unsuccessful bids. And now he is making a second go at nabbing the village’s highest office, looking to gain ground from his 2019 bid by joining forces with his Achieve Party trustee candidates Amil Virani and Nicolas Nogueira, as well as village justice candidate Charles Lawson — an administrative law judge specializing in family law.

“The bottom line is I’m going to vigorously defend the interests of Valley Stream residents,” Bonelli said. “Residents come first. What needs the community has, we’ll address. But we have to work with the numbers, and talk to all the stakeholders.”

Bonelli’s biggest priority is pushing for austerity measures to improve the village’s financial position, but he also has a fair share of project proposals lined up: like modernizing Waldinger Memorial Library with study rooms, creating cultural affairs and community affairs departments, and having a free subscription service to residents to receive emailed notifications of monthly board meeting agendas.

“To help transparency, I want to provide a digital archive of past meetings and make sure library and zoning board meetings are also in front of a camera and archived,” Bonelli said.

Virani, a senior at Queens College majoring in political science and corporate finance, says his aim is to “focus on the needs of Valley Stream’s youngest generation to ensure they have access to internship opportunities in the village to help get them a head start.”

“I’m passionate about public service and I have a strong desire to make a positive impact in the community that I grew up and continue to live in for over 20 years,” said Nogueira, communications and policy director for Assemblywoman Kimberly Jean-Pierre.

“My experience has opened my eyes to how much room for improvement there is in Valley Stream. There are so many opportunities at the state level that can help our fiscal situation with grants and audit support services.

“We should be building relationships with our businesses, make our operations more efficient and mindful of the impact on our tax burden.”