BookView Review: Alfred B. DelBello: His Life and Times, a biography by John A. Lipman

BookView Review rated it:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Publication Date: September 15, 2022

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

List Price: $18.95 Trade Paperback

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1-63988-480-3

Genre: Nonfiction, Biography

Language: English

Page Count: 265

Alfred B. DelBello, writes Lipman, was a man of integrity and honor, who dedicated his life to public service.  Lipman explores DelBello’s successful career in the public sector as County Executive of Westchester County, Mayor of Yonkers, and Lt. Governor of New York State and his transition from politics to the private sector after he resigned as lieutenant governor on February 1, 1985. After his defeat in 1994 (he tried to re-enter politics with a run for the State Senate), DelBello continued to pursue his political passions in business. The book covers DelBello’s numerous accomplishments during his political career, including improvements to the Westchester Medical Center, the county’s transportation system (he consolidated a collection of private transportation companies to create a unified county bus service and helped develop the Westchester County Airport as a regional air hub), the introduction of garbage to energy initiatives that resulted in the development and operation of a garbage to energy plant in Peekskill, the creation of the first Office for the Disabled and the first Office for Women in the state among others. DelBello had a knack for interlacing issues and solving multiple problems at once. He was a visionary, a daring man who was willing to take political risks by working outside of party boundaries. He encouraged corporations to participate directly in philanthropy for public transportation, housing, and medical insurance. The book also sheds light on some little-known aspects of DelBello’s personality, including his love for rescuing animals and restoring old cars. Using a combination of interviews, newspaper articles, and scrupulous personal research, Lipman draws a sprawling portrait of the extraordinary man. Political readers will find much to appreciate in this meticulously crafted study of a life of public service.

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