T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Belmont County Clerk of Courts Cynthia Fregiato closes out a career in public service today as she prepares for retirement.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County Clerk of Courts Cynthia Fregiato is closing out a proud career in public service to the county today as she retires from her position.

“I’m really happy to have been able to be the clerk since 2019, and I think I’ve made a difference in a lot of this. Of course the staff I have is wonderful both here and at the Title Office. They are all professionals and they make things run like clockwork, and so it’s been a pleasure working with them,” she said. “I can’t say enough about my staff.

“We’ve done a lot. We’ve organized records at the old records building, and we have some of the old document books. We took them from the rehab center and brought those to the records building. I’ve had a lot of scanning done.

“Most of the records from 1995 to 2007, I got those scanned in. There’s still a few more to do,” she said. “I just think that I did a lot of organizing. I got the pay for the staff up to what I think it should be for what I do, and I just had a great time.”

She is looking forward to retirement with her husband, Frank Fregiato, who retired earlier this year as a Belmont County common pleas judge.

“It’s time to retire, and I’m a little sad about that, but we’re going to be in Cincinnati with our children and grandchildren. Our son’s only two hours away from us, now he’s in Indianapolis, so I’ll be spending a lot of time with them. I have a new granddaughter, she’s about 4 1/2 months old. We have four boys and one girl, so I’m gonna spend my time spoiling the kids.”

She and her husband have also been contributors to the local community. They have spearheaded the Belmont County Staying Clean Car Show to raise money for preventive outreach to keep students off drugs. The seventh annual event will be held Sept. 9 at the Ohio Valley Mall.

Prior to taking the position of clerk of courts, Cynthia Fregiato served on the Belmont County Board of Elections for 23 years.

“I could see candidates coming in and how effective some of them were in offices, and I loved the election board, I really did, and I think we made a difference,” she said. “When this opportunity came about, I thought: ‘Why not give it a chance?'”

The Belmont County Republican Party appointed her in David Trouten’s place when Trouten became judge of Belmont County Eastern Division Court.

“I’ve taken the job, and I hope I’ve made it mine in a way. I’ve been here 99 percent of the time, and I just felt like I wanted to do some public service and thought I could make a difference and I hope I have,” she said.

She foresees more advancements in the future under the new clerk as technology develops.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve switched over to a cloud-based version of our current management system and we are just now up and running. You can go and get civil cases online, the actual documents, and we’re working with probate court on that,” she said. “Eventually they’ll be e-filing where they just send in everything by email and the attorneys won’t necessarily have to come in and file. There’s a lot going on with technology.”

According to David Jones, chairman of the Belmont County Republican Party, the central committee will meet Sept. 6 to review candidates and select a new appointee to become clerk of courts. Jones said Fregiato has been invaluable to the area.

“We are going to miss her, not only as clerk of courts but we’re going to miss her in the Republican Party, too, because she was our treasurer and she had a vast knowledge of how things worked, and we relied on her heavily,” he said. “I especially am going to miss her, because she helped me as chairman.”