Mayor Has New Administrative Assistant

There’s a new face in the mayor’s office, replacing one that had greeted visitors for 22 years.

Connie Malchiodi has been hired to replace longtime mayoral assistant Cathy Cubilla, who left her job in July.

Cubilla worked in the mayor’s office for 22 years, scheduling events, keeping track of appointments and phone calls, meetings and visits, sometimes doing human resource work, and generally oiling the gears of the town’s top office.

“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the townspeople for 22 years,” Cubilla said in a note, “and have enjoyed interacting with them and assisting them to the best of my ability.”

Malchiodi, who lives in Meriden, worked for AT&T for 30 years, and was laid off three years ago.

“It was devastating,” she says. AT&T had been laying people off for years, she says, but it was one of those things that you never think will happen to you.

At AT&T, she worked in human resources, managing people and attendance.

“Now, it’s being done by somebody in Cleveland, Ohio, if it’s being done at all,” she says.

Even while Malchiodi is being greeted, Cubilla is being missed. Mayor Joe Jaskiewicz spoke highly of Malchiodi during the hiring process, but added that Cubilla had accumulated a lot of knowledge over the years.

“She knew the charter like the back of her hand,” he says. “I wish her well.”

Town Council Vice Chairman Ellen Hillman says “Cathy will be dearly missed for her smiling face behind that desk and her laughter that always makes everyone smile.”

Town Clerk Lisa Terry says Cubilla “was my go-to person for Freedom of Information and Parliamentary procedure. That knowledge is really going to be missed.”

“I think she was the continuity that has spanned 20 years from mayor to mayor and regime to regime,” says Town Council Chairman Donna Jacobson, who is a candidate for mayor.

“She had a very, very specific knowledge base,” Jacobson says.

Malchiodi says it’s unsettling to start anew, after being an expert at her work. But she is digging in, learning as she goes. There are a lot of differences from and similarities to her old job, she says, and a lot to learn. Different rules govern municipal work, she says, particularly in areas like records retention.

“The people here have been so nice and so helpful,” she says. But everything is new.

“I worked for the phone company for 30 years,” she says. “I thought I knew how to transfer a call.” She gestures to the phone on her new desk. “But I’ve never seen a phone like this one!”