David Wildstein reports for New Jersey Globe
April 14,
Former New Jersey Senate Minority Leader S. Thomas Gagliano, a popular and respected legislator who served as executive director of New Jersey Transit, died on Saturday night. He was 87.
A wake will be held on Tuesday from 4:00-8:00 PM at the Woolley-
A fixture in Monmouth County politics for seven decades, Gagliano began his long career in New Jersey politics in the 1950s as an aide to Rep. James Auchincloss (R-Rumson) while attending law school at Georgetown University.
Within months of his graduation from law school, he has become the attorney for the new Shore Regional school to help get site approval of a controversial new high school in West Long Branch. He later represented a group of taxpayers opposing a sewer rate hike in Long Branch and secured a planning board seat in his hometown of Oceanport.
In 1961, at age 29, Gagliano became a candidate for State Assembly. Monmouth had picked up a third Assembly seat after the 1960 census and Gagliano wanted to run with incumbents Alfred Beadleston (R-Rumson) and Clifton Barkalow (R-Freehold). He withdrew when the county GOP decided to go with attorney Irving Keith (R-Bradley Beach) as their candidate.
He continued to become a powerhouse in Oceanport, winning the Republican Club presidency and trading his planning board seat for the planning board attorney slot.
Gagliano mounted his second campaign for assemblyman in 1964, following the resignation of Assemblyman Clarkson Fisher (R-Sea Bright). Fisher, who had won Barkalow’s open seat the previous year, resigned to become a Monmouth County judge.
The race for Clarkson’s seat drew a strong field of candidates, including Middletown Republican municipal chairman Joseph Azzolina, Red Bank GOP chairman John Arnone, Long Branch city attorney Louis Aikens, and Asbury Park councilman James Coleman. Monmouth County Republican chairman J. Russell Wooley went with Aikens and the rest of the candidates dropped out.
In 1967, he was elected to the Oceanport Borough Council. He defeated Democrat Siguard Andreson by about 170 votes.
Gagliano’s law practice continued to grow and he became the counsel to the Monmouth County Welfare Board and the Holmdel township attorney. He later added the Shrewsbury Zoning Board to his client list.
Bid for Monmouth County Surrogate
Aikens gave up his Assembly seat in 1969 to run for Monmouth County Surrogate but resigned after thirteen months in office. President Nixon had nominated Fisher to serve as a federal judge and Gov. William Cahill picked Aikens to take the vacant county court judgeship.
Cahill nominated Gagliano, now 39, to be the new surrogate, a part-time, $18,000-a-year post in those days.
