Jeff Barone may no longer be working in constituent affairs, but he is far from done working with the residents of Cranston.

Barone, the director of constituent affairs for Mayor Allan Fung the last four years, was recently appointed the new leader of the Michael A. Traficante Enrichment Center. It’s been 18 months since the department had an official director following the resignation of Sue Stenhouse.

David Quiroa, the head of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), served as acting director until Barone began Monday. Barone, who sat down with the Herald on Friday, expressed his gratitude to Quiroa for admirably filling in shortly after Stenhouse stepped down.

“Dave did a great job, he’s very articulate,” Barone said. “The RSVP is a big factor of the division because we have 140, 150 volunteers, maybe even more. He’s got to coordinate all that. When you volunteer, you come in, you get interviewed. They don’t let just anybody volunteer. You have to be accurate as to where [grant money] is going, and doing both jobs, he did it. It was difficult.”

Now, though, it’s Barone’s turn to take over. He said that he was first approached about the position in December, but he and the administration waited to make any moves until after the brutal winter season ended.

Other jobs were opening up across the city as well, including at the housing authority that will soon be headed by current Director of Administration Rob Coupe, so it wasn’t until June that Barone was officially installed.

“I had a tough winter, we had snow [and] the highway guys did a great job,” Barone said. “[But] the constituents, they get nervous. They start calling, and Facebook and all this other stuff, and we have to keep up on that. We wanted to get through the winter. We wanted to see what was going to happen.”

He’s having no issue settling in to his new home. He gave an extensive tour of the senior center, taking time in each room and office to mingle with his co-workers and his new constituents.

Barone already has immediate plans for new events, including a seminar with the Cranston Police Department to inform senior citizens about potential scams. He also intends on bringing in the fire department to give tips on how to react during house fires.

“I want to use the resources I have in the city,” Barone said. “I dealt with a lot of constituent issues, from snow plowing to trash pickup to minimum housing issues, community development issues, road paving, street light issues. I handled all of that stuff. I don’t know how to pave a road, I don’t know how to plow snow, but what I do have is the ability to bring those guys together. To coordinate them to do what needs to be done.”

Barone also noted another paramount initiative, which would be to bring in a volunteer to help veterans complete all of their paperwork to receive benefits. The relationship could be symbiotic: The veterans receive the help they want, and perhaps the center adds to its 900-plus members.

Reaching out to a wider demographic is another goal of his, after all. That’s why he got behind the effort to remove the word “senior” from the name of the building and replace it with “enrichment.”

“To belong to the senior center you have to be 55 or older, which is younger than social security and probably younger than a senior discount,” Barone said, with a smile. “We want to be able to capture that 55-60 [demographic] because obviously we want more members, but there’s a lot for those people to do. When you hear the word ‘senior’ you think, ‘I’m not ready.’”

The past week since his appointment has been a whirlwind as he moves out of City Hall and on to Cranston Street, but he knows he won’t be too far from home.

“I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and knew it wasn’t a train,” Barone said, laughing, of his final appointment in front of the City Council in late June. “I knew that because the mayor asked me to do this. I felt that he has the confidence in that I can. So my main concern is to do it [and] not let him down.

“I’m not going to be getting away from the constituent complaint. It’s just going to be on a different level. I may get the complaint from a member downstairs, ‘Oh, they haven’t picked up my trash in a couple of days.’ I can call, I can still do that. I’m geared up for it.”

The man who first came to him about the job is equally as excited. Mayor Fung expressed his congratulations to Barone in a statement to the Herald on Monday.

“I’m very pleased that Jeff Barone will be in the leadership role at the senior center,” Fung, who used to work with Barone on the City Council, said. “Along with his commitment to public serve, he has the compassion and vision to lead the center while providing our seniors with high quality services and enrichment opportunities.

“We’ll miss Jeff’s presence in City Hall, where he handed constituent affairs with professionalism, grace and humor. Personally, I’ll miss having someone in City Hall who makes even me look tall!”