Romilda Crocamo will be Luzerne County’s new top manager

Romilda Crocamo will be Luzerne County’s new top manager, county council decided in a 10-1 vote Tuesday.

The vote tally and swift action reflects a nearly united front that Crocamo is the correct choice to fill the position vacated when prior manager Randy Robertson ended work here in November. Councilman Stephen J. Urban was the lone vote against Crocamo.

Crocamo will receive $160,000 in the new position.

A West Hazleton resident, Crocamo is an attorney and shareholder at the law firm Elliott Greenleaf & Dean. She also works as an assistant solicitor for Scranton city government. She said she will end all outside employment to accept the manager position.

She had worked at two New York City law firms and as managing attorney at the Barbara J. Hart Justice Center in Scranton before starting her county government employment in 2010. Crocamo initially worked as a master of county juvenile delinquency and dependency court and then as a law clerk for county Court of Common Pleas Judge Tina Polachek Gartley. In July 2016, she was hired as chief county solicitor to oversee the county’s law division.

Council had appointed Crocamo as acting manager when C. David Pedri left the manager position in July 2021 — a role she filled for approximately 10 months.

What happened a little over a year ago stands in contrast to the current manager vote. Crocamo applied for the permanent manager position at that time, but council was unable to act on the hiring in March 2022 because no finalist secured the required seven votes, with six votes cast for Robertson and five for Crocamo.

Citing the interest of council and the county as a whole, Crocamo withdrew her name from consideration, resulting in nine of 11 council members voting to hire Robertson.

Shortly before Robertson’s arrival in June 2022, Crocamo left to accept the position at Elliott Greenleaf & Dean.

In her public interview for the manager position last week, Crocamo said she wants to be part of moving the county forward to make it exemplary across both the state and nation.

She promised to streamline services and promptly complete assessments on purchasing procedures, outstanding capital projects and litigation and the state of the county prison, Children and Youth and roads/bridges.

More collaboration and communication within the administration and with council also is needed, she had said.

County 911 Executive Director Fred Rosencrans and county Engineer William McIntosh, who oversees county buildings and grounds, also had advanced to the finalist stage and were publicly interviewed.

Check back later for updates and see Wednesday’s paper for more.