Return Bonilla to town clerk’s office

In the race for Town of Hempstead clerk, the choice is clear: Republican incumbent Mark Bonilla of Bellmore.

We have our doubts about whether the clerk’s job should be an elected position. That aside, Bonilla, an attorney, brings a rare love for a part-time position that essentially involves lots of paperwork. The clerk is the town’s keeper of records — birth, marriage and death certificates, all court cases and everything from requests for zoning variances to block-party permits.

It isn’t exactly a high-profile post, but Bonilla, the first Hispanic elected official in the town’s history, has done an excellent job of getting the word out to residents about the services available to them through his office. In particular, we like the work he has done on child-identification fingerprinting and his mobile passport unit.

Bonilla’s opponent, Democrat Anthony Rattoballi of Valley Stream, also an attorney, appears to be a competent professional, but he offered no concrete reasons to unseat a seasoned incumbent like Bonilla.