Ocean County Clerk Scott M. Colabella will be the next President of the Constitutional Officers Association of New Jersey (COANJ) following a County Freeholders meeting this week announcing the appointment.

Colabella was surrounded by his peers, members of his staff and the Freeholders, on September 19 where he was presented with a resolution from the Board.

The Sheriffs, County Clerks, Registers and Surrogates of New Jersey will hold a conference in Atlantic City on September 27, where Colabella and other elected officials will formally be installed as officers of COANJ.

“I am honored to have been selected by my peers for this position,” Colabella said. “I look forward to serving the Association as its president for this one year term.”

COANJ was established in 1920 as a cooperative effort among the Sheriffs, County Clerks, Surrogates, and Registers of Deeds and Mortgages of the 21 counties of New Jersey to improve services rendered to their communities.

Association officers are nominated by a bipartisan committee of constitutional officers and then elected and installed annually.

“All of the Constitutional Officers are responsible for providing various services to the public within their respective counties and work together to promote shared services to better serve our constituents,” Colabella said. “COANJ is a vital bipartisan organization that works with State Legislators and other elected officials to ensure that legislation affecting counties has a positive impact on the residents represented in each County.”

Colabella follows in the footsteps of former Ocean County Clerk M. Dean Haines, who served as COANJ President in 1998 as well as Carl W. Block who served as president in 2007.

“The Ocean County Clerk’s Office has always been forward thinking and one of the most technologically advanced Clerk’s Office in New Jersey,” OC Freeholder Director Gerry Little said. “Scott has continued the outstanding work of his predecessors and continues to make the Ocean County Clerk’s office the best in the state. We congratulate him on becoming the president of the Association. It is well deserved and we know he will do a great job.”

Colabella began his public service in 1982 as an assistant to then Governor Thomas H. Kean.

From 1982 to 1986, Colabella served as Deputy Director and then Acting Director of the Governor’s Office of Constituent Relations.

Seven years later Colabella was appointed as Executive Assistant to Ocean County Clerk M. Dean Haines and served in that position for nearly eleven years until his appointment as Deputy County Clerk on January 1, 2004 and seven years later he was elected as County Clerk.

In 2006, COANJ presented him with the Rita M. Rosenberg Memorial Award for his past and future years of dedicated service and hard work to advance the ideals, principles and philosophy of COANJ.

The League of Women Voters of New Jersey presented Colabella with a “Hurricane Heroes Award” in 2013 for his efforts to make it possible for New Jersey citizens to exercise their right to vote in the 2012 General Election in the face of Hurricane Sandy’s devastating aftermath.

As one of Ocean County’s Constitutional Officers, Colabella is responsible for the administration of a broad range of services offered by the County Clerk’s Office, including the supervision of the filing and recording of all documents affecting real estate ownership and transfer throughout the County, assisting residents in obtaining passports for foreign travel and the administration of all elections in Ocean County.

“Scott has done great work in the County Clerk’s Office for Ocean County and its residents over the years,” OC Freeholder John "Jack" Kelly, who serves as liaison to the County Clerk said. “As County Clerk, he has implemented many new programs and services to our citizens, including our veterans and makes certain the services of his office are easily accessible to all residents of the County.”

More From The Jersey Shore:

More From 105.7 The Hawk