Reisman: Political lessons from Al DelBello

Al DelBello thought big.

How big? Once he proposed a county takeover of Con Edison — the electric company that was charging the highest rates in the nation.

This was back in 1979 when DelBello was serving as Westchester's first Democratic county executive. Nobody likes paying bills as a general rule, but people really disliked Con Ed. DelBello captured the touchy zeitgeist.

Challenging the primacy of the powerful monopoly was a bit like "meddling with the primal forces of nature," to quote the megalomaniacal corporate titan played by Ned Beatty in the movie "Network." Andrew O'Rourke, DelBello's Republican successor, said the idea was "crazy."

Though the takeover bid ultimately failed, 46 percent of voters favored the idea. Many observers believed the referendum would have passed, except for a $1.3 million publicity blitz by Con Ed that was designed to douse the enthusiasm. DelBello said it was a scare campaign.

"It was a good trick and it worked," he said.

The Con Ed takeover saga was all but overlooked in the obituaries and encomiums that followed DelBello's death on May 15 at the age of 80. And yet it exemplified his political talent for sizing up problems that are in the public interest and then confronting them shrewdly, creatively and even audaciously.

This is called leadership. Failing from time to time is called democracy.

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DelBello left behind some important lessons about leadership that were wonderfully described by Sam Yasgur, who was among a dozen speakers at a memorial service held last Thursday at Tappan Hill in Tarrytown.

Yasgur was the county attorney when DelBello was in office. DelBello didn't want a yes man, Yasgur recalled, but an attorney with "honest views" who would set up a "first-rate law office."

DelBello arrived at important decisions by holding an after-hours summit at his home, which in those days was a carriage house in Hastings-on-Hudson. Four different groups of key advisers were consulted in the house, but none of the groups were allowed to mingle, Yasgur said. They were called in separately.

The first group was comprised of Democratic Party leaders. Their main interest wasn't necessarily the county executive's political advancement, but the party.

After them came the county professionals — the accountants, engineers, etc. Politically neutral, their concerns centered on the practical nuts and bolts of the task at hand.

Next were the loyal family retainers, the people who primarily cared about DelBello's political welfare. Included in that group was Joseph D'Albora, a long-time loyalist who also spoke at the memorial service.

The fourth and final group was the "kitchen cabinet." Yasgur said he was a member of this inner circle, fully implying that its mission was to serve only the public at large, which superseded the priorities of the other three groups.

DelBello listened, debated and then acted.

Yasgur noted that there was plenty to act on. When DelBello took office, there were 20 separate bus companies; municipal incinerators were polluting the air; the sewage treatment system was antiquated; there were two competing county law enforcement agencies and the county airport consisted of nothing much more than a dilapidated Quonset hut fit for the days of Wily Post and Amelia Earhart.

DelBello took on these and other issues one by one. Some of his ideas failed. Many worked. And he did it while dealing with a county Board of Legislators that had 11 Republicans and six Democrats.

Rob Astorino, the sitting county executive, who is a Republican, got laughs at the memorial service when he observed that the GOP was in the majority in Westchester at the time. "Ah, the good old days," he said.

Astorino, who came into power on a promise of cutting the expense of government, also noted another difference between then and now.

"He was forward thinking at a time when we needed that," he said of DelBello.

His son, Damon, remembered how this philosophy reached into all aspects of his life — even in home improvement projects. He and his father collaborated on these tasks. Nothing was too ambitious.

"These weren't little birdhouses we were working on," he said.

DelBello always thought big. He brought Westchester into the modern era and along the way, he boldly stepped on some toes.

Nobody felt that heavy foot more than Con Edison.

DelBello lost the battle. But he shined a light on the lighting company.

And as Yasgur told me, after that Con Ed was much easier to deal with.

Email: preisman@lohud.com Twitter: @philreisman