Chairman Emeritus, Al DelBello passes

The Westchester Land Trust community mourns the loss of former Board Chair, Alfred DelBello, who passed away on Friday, May 15, 2015. The list of Al’s accomplishments, honors, and elected positions are too numerous to mention, but most notably, he was a former Mayor of Yonkers from 1970 to 1974, Westchester County Executive from 1974 to 1982, and New York State Lt. Governor under Mario Cuomo from 1982-1985. For the past 30 years, he practiced law in the private sector as a partner in the law firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr LLP in White Plains. But he will always be remembered by the WLT as one of the driving forces behind our organization’s founding in 1988 as well as its Board Chairman for several years in the early 1990s. At the time of his passing, Al was a Chairman Emeritus of WLT as well as a member of its Advisory Board. The common thread running through Al’s professional, political and public service career, has been his dedication to Westchester County — his home since his birth in Yonkers to his recent years in Waccabuc. In fact, it is that commitment to all of Westchester’s residents that helped WLT expand from a local, Northern Westchester-focused land preservation organization, to one that works county-wide. As Susan Henry, a current WLT Board member who served with Al wrote back in 2010 when the organization honored him with its Preservation Angel Award, “Al’s reputation and connections enabled WLT to work more widely to protect water quality and community character, and reach more Westchester citizens throughout the County.” Al will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live on in the lands he helped WLT preserve for future generations. We send our deepest sympathy to his wife Dee, and the entire family. A memorial service will be held on May 28th, at 9:30 am at Tappan Hill Mansion, 81 Highland Avenue, Tarrytown.