Joe Masullo - quality and honesty in politics
Published: August 19, 2003
Involved in Bellefonte Burrough politics since the early 1970’s Joe Masullo can only be described as a rare, underreported breed: the True & Honest Politician. When the arrival of a big plant didn’t give anything in return for the town he decided to get involved in the town’s politics, promising that he would make Bellefonte beautiful.
He got local business owners to donate $25 each to pay for trees to line Bellefonte’s downtown streets. With the help of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and some other concerned citizens, he went after the town’s limestone company to get it to install dust traps to eliminate the limestone dust that coated just about everything in town. He helped create Talleyrand Park. He was one of the people who helped develop the Bellefonte Historic District and saved the historic Gamble Mill, now a restaurant, from being destroyed.
Five or six years ago the now 72 year old Masullo got involved with the local cemetery. When budget cuts threatened the care taking of the cemetery he started taking care of cutting its lawn himself, saving the cemetry about US $6,500 on a US $16,500 lawn mowing bill.
Masullo and a few other volunteers spend a lot of afternoons in the newest section of the cemetery along Howard Street mowing, weed-whacking, trimming branches and other yard work. Prison inmates take over some of the mowing and upkeep in the older section; high schoolers and other volunteers take over the upkeep for other sections of the cemetery.
He also donates US $3,000 a year to the cemetery - the maximum amount allowed under local laws.
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