Paul J. Contillo, an impeccably honest and sometimes stubborn Bergen County Democrat who championed local government ethics laws and campaign finance reform and sponsored New Jersey’s first mandatory retirement law while serving in the New Jersey State Senate, died on February 6 after a brief illness. He was 94.
Contillo served as an assemblyman from 1974 to 1980, as a state senator from 1984 to 1992, and again as an interim assemblyman for two months at the end of 2013 and the start of 2014.
“Paul Contillo was a titan in Bergen County politics and a figure I looked up to as I got my start locally in Paramus,” said State Sen. Joseph Lagana (D-Paramus). “It was a true honor to succeed him in the legislature, and I will always appreciate his advice and wisdom.”
A former Assistant Senate Majority Leader, Contillo led the fight to use state funds to clean up hazardous waste sites and protect lands owned by the Hackensack Water Co. from development. He pushed through laws that required personal financial disclosures from local governing body members and planning and zoning boards. During his first month as an assemblyman in 1974, Contillo introduced a bill banning dual-officeholding that immediately caused many of his Democratic colleagues to know his name.
He began his public service career in the 1960s as the chairman of the Paramus Zoning Board at a time of snowballing growth and retail development.
In 1970, Contillo made his first run for office as a candidate for the Paramus Township Council. The municipality had just changed its charter to elect mayors for a four-year term, and voters re-elected Mayor Charles Reid and Councilman James Robertson, both Republicans. But Contillo flipped the open seat of retiring GOP Councilman George Schmidt, defeating Republican Charles Soldaro by about 300 votes; as a result, the split 3-3 council shifted to a 4-2 Democratic majority.
The unexpected withdrawal of the Democratic nominee opened the door for Contillo to run for the State Assembly in 1973 in a newly-drawn 38th district that included Hackensack, Hasbrouck Heights, Little Ferry, Lodi, Maywood, Oradell, Paramus, River Edge, Rochelle Park, Saddle Brook, South Hackensack, Teterboro, and Wood-Ridge.
Bergen County Democrats had picked Paramus Councilman Alfonso De Filippo to run for Assembly on a ticket with freshman Democratic Assemblyman Edward Hynes (D-Maywood).
But the 49-year-old De Filippo, who had suffered his second heart attack before the primary, resigned from his council seat in mid-August and dropped out of the Assembly race, citing health concerns.
Contillo, who was not seeking re-election to a second term as councilman, entered the race to replace De Filippo on the Democratic ticket. He faced three rivals: Hasbrouck Heights Councilman George Hughes, Lodi school board member Anthony Luna, and Donald Tepper, who had lost a non-partisan Hackensack city council race the previous May. Democrats picked Contillo to team up with Hynes.
The burgeoning Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon’s decision to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in the Saturday Night Massacre ten days before the election led to a Democratic wave election in Bergen County and across the state. Brendan Byrne was elected governor with 67% of the statewide vote – he carried Bergen by 89,757 votes – and Democrats in Bergen County picked up four Senate seats and won eight Assembly seats. Democrats finished the 1973 cycle with 29 state senators and 66 assembly seats.
Hynes and Contillo coasted to victory; Contillo outpolled Reid, who had also been elected to the Assembly in 1971, by 9,602 votes. Contillo won Paramus, receiving roughly 1,650 votes more than Reid, and lost only Hasbrouck Heights, Oradell, and South Hackensack.
The other Republican, Ralph Chandless, Jr., the Hasbrouck Heights GOP municipal chairman and the son of a former state senator and onetime Bergen political boss, finished 10,274 votes behind Contillo. Also in the 38th, Democrat John Skevin (D-Oradell), a former assemblyman, ousted an incumbent GOP state senator; Contillo and Skevin had a toxic relationship over the next decade.
As a freshman assemblyman, Contillo was one of three Bergen Democrats to vote against the first iteration of Byrne’s proposal to establish a state income tax. He proposed a one percent increase in New Jersey’s corporate tax to reduce the amount needed to borrow the following year.
Republicans targeted the 38th district to regain Assembly seats, possibly returning Minority Leader Thomas Kean to the speakership.
Hynes, who was 29-years-old, decided not to seek re-election to a third term. Democrats picked Robert Burns, a two-term Hasbrouck Heights councilman — the first Democrat to win there in nearly 50 years — to run with Contillo.
They faced an off-the-line primary from Richard Fritzky, a 25-year-old Hackensack resident who had served as an aide to Boston Mayor Kevin White and Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson. His insurgent candidacy came close: Burns outpolled Contillo by 19 votes, and Contillo beat Fritzky by 778 votes, a margin of more than ten points.
In the general election, Contillo and Burns faced Chandless and Frank Buono, Jr., who served as a Hackensack councilman from 1960 to 1969 and as a Bergen County Freeholder from 1968 until he lost his seat in the 1973 Watergate landslide.
Buono and Chandless ran as opponents of the income tax, sometimes frustrating Contillo, who had voted against it. Indeed, their campaign was as if Byrne was their opponent.
Democrats lost 17 Assembly seats in Byrne’s midterm election, but Contillo connected with voters in his district, and he was re-elected by a small but comfortable 1,748 votes over Buono and 1,821 against Chandless. Contillo finished 1,110 votes in front of Burns.
Contillo won Paramus by over 2,100 votes, carrying every town except Hasbrouck Heights, Oradell, River Edge, South Hackensack, and Teterboro.
The GOP again set its sights on the 38th in 1977, picking Paramus Councilman Louis Kosco and former Lodi Mayor James Cuccio to challenge them. Buono took on Skevin for the Senate seat.
First, Contillo and Burns needed to beat back another primary challenge from Fritzky. This time, Contillo won by 1,855 votes, a 13-point margin. In that race, Bergen County used an office block ballot design.
Contillo remained an anti-state income tax Democrat in his second term, while Burns voted for it.
The 1977 race turned out to be a romp. Byrne carried the 38th, and Contillo finished 3,034 votes ahead of Cuccio and beat Kosco by 4,557.
But by 1979, Contillo’s political luck had run out. Byrne’s approval ratings in his sixth year as governor were low, and Republicans targeted Contillo for a third time.
Kosco ran again, along with John Paolella, a brash 30-year-old Hackensack attorney who waged an aggressive grassroots campaign to beat Cuccio at the GOP convention.
Paolella was the top vote-getter, running 874 votes ahead of Kosco; Kosco beat Contillo by just 374 votes, with Burns finishing fourth, 910 votes behind Contillo.
Hackensack went Republican, but Contillo made it close by carrying Paramus by about 800 votes.
Democrats lost ten Assembly seats in Byrne’s second midterm, four of them in Bergen County.
In 1981, Contillo initially sought a return to the Assembly but decided to challenge Skevin for the Senate; he came within six votes of beating him at the Democratic convention. Contillo blamed a friend and political ally, Paramus Mayor Joseph Cipolla, of screwing him and secretly sending votes to Skevin, but he declined to run off the line in the Democratic primary.
Paolella challenged Skevin and beat him by 2,702 votes, a five-point win in a three-candidate field.
Contillo mounted another comeback bid in 1983, this time against Paolella. After 1981 redistricting, the 38th now included Bogota, Hackensack, Hasbrouck Heights, Haworth, Little Ferry, Lodi, Maywood, Oradell, Palisades Park, Paramus, Ridgefield Park, Rochelle Park and Saddle Brook.
Skevin also sought to return to the Senate, along with Cipolla, Maywood attorney Thomas Hynes, and Robert Sturges, a former acting director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.
With support from Democratic County Chairman Joseph Parisi, Freeholder/Cliffside Park Mayor Gerald Calabrese, and Democratic powerbroker Stephen Moses, Cipolla was considered the front-runner. Skevin was tossed from the convention ballot after refusing to promise not to run in the primary.
Still, Contillo leveraged his relationships with county committee members to score a massive upset. Contillo beat Cipolla, 132-72, with 65 for Sturges and 21 for Hynes.
Contillo defeated an off-the-line Skevin in the Democratic primary by 849 votes, 48.7% to 35.5%; Hynes finished third with 14.3%. Contillo carried Paramus by 400 votes (65%-28%); Skevin won Oradell and Lodi.
In Kean’s midterm election, Contillo hammered Paolella for using his Senate seat to promote his law firm and not being a serious legislator. He called Paolella immature and a flip-flopper. Paolella promised to “crush” Contillo.
Buoyed by an 800-vote margin in Paramus, Contillo narrowly ousted Paolella by 595 votes, 50.7% to 49.3%. Contillo won Hackensack by roughly 1,000 votes and Saddle Brook by about 1,100 and battled Paolella to a draw in Little Ferry, Maywood, Palisades Park, Ridgefield Park, and Rochelle Park.
Again, Contillo found himself sitting atop a Republican target list. Kosco, who held his Assembly seat in 1983 by 2,888 votes, decided to run for the Senate. But Contillo beat him by 2,368 votes, 52.6% to 47.4%, after labeling Kosco, the chairman of the Assembly Banking Committee, as a pawn of the banking industry.
In their mutual hometown, Paramus, Contillo won by over 1,200 votes, 52%-48%.
For the 1991 election, the 38th was redrawn to include Cliffside Park, Elmwood Park, Garfield, Hasbrouck Heights, Little Ferry, Lodi, Moonachie, Oradell, Palisades Park, Paramus, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park, Saddle Brook, South Hackensack, Teterboro, and Wood-Ridge. Redistricting put three Assembly incumbents into one district: Pat Roma (R-Palisades Park), Rose Marie Heck (R-Hasbrouck Heights), and Thomas Duch (D-Garfield).
Repeating his stance on Byrne’s income tax, Contillo was one of two Democrats to oppose Gov. Jim Florio’s $2.8 billion tax increase. But Kosco tied Contillo to higher taxes anyway,
In a Republican wave election – the GOP captured control of both houses of the legislature, finishing with four Republican senators in Bergen County – Kosco unseated Contillo in a landslide; he won by 7,176 votes, 55%-41% in a three-way race run by former South Orange Village Trustee James Weinstein.
Contillo mounted his last campaign, his tenth, in 1987 in search of a rematch with his bitter rival, Kosco. Bergen Democrats instead backed Garfield Mayor James Krone in a 152-139 vote at their convention.
Krone defeated Contillo by 851 votes, 58%-42%, in the Democratic primary; Krone went on to lose the general to Kosco by 27 points.
After leaving the Senate, Contillo became president of Common Cause New Jersey. Later, Gov. James E. McGreevey nominated Contillo to serve on the state Parole Board. He remained in that post until 2009.
But Contillo wound up getting one more chance to serve in the legislature.
After Assemblywoman Connie Wagner (D-Paramus) had dropped her re-election bid in 2013, she was replaced by Lagana, then a Paramus councilman, and then decided to resign on October 1. Bergen County Democrats met on October 20 and picked the 84-year-old Contillo as their caretaker legislator; he was sworn in on November 18 and returned to the Assembly for 47 days before his term expired on January 14, 2014.
After serving in the U.S. Naval Reserves, the Brooklyn-born former high school football player founded a small printing company in lower Manhattan, Allied Reproductions, that grew into a large financial printing operation.
Contillo was predeceased by his wife, Kathleen, and daughter, Ginger. He is survived by his son and four daughters, eleven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
The Contillo family will receive friends on Sunday, February 11 from 11 AM to 3 PM at the Vander Plaat Memorial Home in Paramus. A funeral mass will be held at Our Lady of the Visitation Church in Paramus at 10 AM on Monday.
The post Paul Contillo, maverick former senator and assemblyman, dies at 94 appeared first on New Jersey Globe.