After 41 years serving the town of Livingston – and, for the last 19 years, Millburn as well – Lou Anello retired, as of January 1, as the director of health and health officer of the township.Anello had initially been planning to retire in October 2020, but postponed it because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I didn’t want to leave the township or the department dealing with COVID,” he said.“Unfortunately, COVID is not locked down, it isn’t going anywhere real quick. So, I put my papers in for January 2022, not realizing that it would be as bad as it is now. But there had to be a time for me to leave.”Anello felt more comfortable retiring now, he said, because Michael Raimo, the health department’s assistant health officer, has two years of health officer supervision under his belt. Raimo was appointed by Anello after working in the department full time as a registered environmental health specialist (an investigator of public health and environmental regulations) for about ten years.“It’s been a good transition,” Anello said.Environmental health specialist is the same position that Anello was hired to fill, back in September of 1980. He had been a community health major in college and thought he would become an environmentalist. “Which I kind of am,” he said.A few years later, the town’s longtime health officer, Paul Jackson, retired. When township manager Robert Harp asked Anello to assume the position, Anello became the youngest health officer in the state.At the time, the Livingston Health Department had about five employees. That number has since doubled.Almost 20 years ago, Livingston and Millburn formed an intra-local service agreement between their health departments. “It’s been good for both communities,” Anello said. “Millburn got me as a shared service, and it’s revenue for the township.”The department’s responsibilities are very diverse, Anello noted, including vital statistics (births and deaths) and public assistance, eatery and environmental inspections, dog licenses, and health education.In late December, Anello was busy coordinating some of the transition and winding down his presidency of the Essex Regional Health Commission. The commission, located in the same building as the Health Department, is made up of local health officers, and Anello has been president for the last 20 years.He and other members of the department continued to work in person in the office despite the pandemic, largely because they had to issue birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage licenses.ChallengesPrior ...
