Alfred DelBello, pioneering politician and attorney, dies

Former New York state Lt. Gov. Alfred B. DelBello, the first Democrat ever to be elected Westchester County Executive, died Friday at his home in Waccabuc. The three-times-elected county executive died of a neuropathic disease at 80.

Mr. DelBello”™s remarkable political career began when, as a two-term Yonkers city councilman, he was swept into office as mayor by a 1969 reform movement powered by the Peanuts Citizens Committee. His upset landslide victory over incumbent Republican Mayor Francis F.X. O”™Rourke triggered an election night street parade and victory celebration the likes of which had never before been seen in Yonkers.

Alfred B. DelBello.

As hoped, the DelBello administration ended a long period of city budget deficits as well as political corruption and mob infiltration that were exposed in State Investigation Commission hearings held in Yonkers in December 1969 following his election.

At 35, Mr. DelBello was the youngest man ever elected Yonkers mayor and the first Democrat to win the office in 30 years. His introduction of a professional city manager and government was so effective in rooting out corruption that his re-election campaign headquarters was shot up overnight and a truckload of garbage was dumped on the front lawn of his city manager in October 1971.

The ominous warnings were not heeded and the next day Mayor DelBello was given a rare political endorsement by former U.S. Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, a seasoned organized crime-fighter, who later became the longtime Manhattan district attorney. He praised the DelBello administration”™s strides in combating corruption and urged Mr. DelBello”™s re-election.

The young, dynamic reform mayor of Yonkers not only cleaned up the mess in that city, but also put it on a good track with many new and innovative programs, over 50 of which were cited in his re-election campaign literature.

Mr. DelBello was re-elected on Nov. 2, 1971, with the largest vote tally ever recorded by a Yonkers mayoral candidate in an election in which the press reported that 80 percent of the eligible voters in Yonkers had voted.

Elected county executive in 1973, Mr. DelBello brought many of the ideas he had successfully pioneered in Yonkers to county government, such as a consumer protection agency and a general services administration that centralized all purchasing. But for certain critical county problems, he had to devise new solutions.

The county was under a federal court order to close down the Croton garbage dump that was polluting the Hudson River and had to come up with a new way to get rid of its waste. Mr. DelBello was ahead of his time and a leader in the waste-to-energy field ”“ a strategy that helped solve two major problems at the same time: the mounting supply of garbage and lack of ways to get rid of it and the need for new energy streams to replace our dependence on fossil fuels.

Mr. DelBello”™s garbage-to-energy initiative was begun in 1974 during the energy crisis when gasoline had to be rationed. It culminated with the construction of a refuse-burning generator in the city of Peekskill nine years later that produces enough electricity to provide for all of that city”™s needs, as well as a surplus to sell to Con Edison.

The county”™s public transportation system was divided between several privately owned bus companies with routes that were not coordinated. Mr. DelBello used the county”™s licensing power to force the companies to coordinate. The new system eventually evolved into the county”™s Bee-Line bus transportation system that has revolutionized public transportation in Westchester.

The county”™s Grasslands Hospital needed to be renovated and upgraded. County Executive DelBello was successful in building the Westchester Medical Center that now serves as the tertiary care hospital for the Hudson River Valley. Among its many advanced care departments that include cardiology and organ transplants, the medical center in 1979 opened a $2.5 million burn treatment unit capable of treating 10 severely burned patients at one time as well as providing for teaching and research. At the time, only a dozen other centers in the nation were comparable.

As county executive, Mr. DelBello created the first Office for Women and the first Office for the Disabled in New York state. He also initiated a popular senior citizen discount program that drew the participation of many supermarkets and large retailers. And he was successful in merging the county Sheriff”™s Office with the Westchester County Parkway Police to produce the county”™s united Department of Public Safety Services.

Mr. DelBello and his wife, Dee, were boosters of the arts in Westchester and arranged for the first performances of the New York Philharmonic in Westchester. They also came up with the idea of closing the Bronx River Parkway on Sundays for bicyclists. Bicycle Sundays became so popular that the program is still going strong today over 40 years later.

Mr. DelBello ran for lieutenant governor in 1982 and was elected to serve with Gov. Mario Cuomo. Among his most important achievements was his effort to highlight the problem of teenage suicide, its causes and possible remedies.

In 1985 he resigned to become president of a new division of Signal Companies Inc. that would specialize in building and operating garbage-to-energy plants ”” a field in which he had developed some expertise. He later left private industry to become a partner in the White Plains law firm of DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr LLP.

As a private citizen of Westchester County, Mr. DelBello was elected chairman of the prestigious Westchester County Association, one of the most influential business organizations in the county. He also served as chairman of the Westchester County Health Care Corp., which ran the Westchester Medical Center.

Mr. DelBello was born on Nov. 3, 1934, in Yonkers. He graduated from the Halsted School and, in 1956, from Manhattan College with majors in economics and political science. He received his law degree from Fordham University Law School and entered private practice after a brief tour with the National Guard.

He is survived by his wife, Dee, owner and publisher of Westfair Communications Inc.; a son, Damon, who is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, and three grandchildren.

A private family funeral service will be held this week. A memorial service for friends and colleagues will be at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 28, at Tappan Hill Mansion, 81 Highland Ave., Tarrytown.

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be sent to: Northern Westchester Hospital, 40 E. Main St., Mount Kisco, NY 10549; Attention: Office of the President.