THIS SIDE UP

Warwick's 'gentle giant' always there to help

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 2/11/21

I knew what Joe Gallucci was going to say. I had heard it before. This time, however, he started off holding his hand up so all his fellow members on the City Council could see the big zero he created between his thumb and forefinger. He had everyone's

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THIS SIDE UP

Warwick's 'gentle giant' always there to help

Posted

I knew what Joe Gallucci was going to say. I had heard it before.

This time, however, he started off holding his hand up so all his fellow members on the City Council could see the big zero he created between his thumb and forefinger. He had everyone’s attention. Then came the refrain we expected.

Joe had done the numbers. He knew what the retail/commercial sector in Ward 8, which includes Warwick Mall and most of the “golden corridor” of Route 2, generated in property taxes. It is more than any other ward. Yet, as Joe emphasized, Ward 8 receives a disproportionately small investment in municipal capital improvements. In fact, he said not since the 1980s had there been any extension of sewers, although some Ward 8 neighborhoods needed them. “Zero.”

Point made; Joe was an advocate of a $33 million bond to carry forward sewer construction as long as funding was earmarked for the O’Donnell Hill neighborhood in East Natick. Ward 8 was always first of mind for Joe, but that’s just part of the picture. Warwick was always first, as was his unfulfilled dream of being mayor.

Joe died Saturday night at Rhode Island Hospital of an embolism. He was 86 years old.

Joe was in his political prime when he faced a three-way contest for the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1984. He was up against two fellow council members – Francis X. Flaherty and Joseph McGair.

The party’s endorsement was key to the race. Joe knew it. He worked the lines and it seemed he would get the nod, but in the end Flaherty was endorsed and went on to win the primary and the election.

Joe didn’t step off the political stage. More importantly, he didn’t lose his passion to help people, nor the calm, reassuring demeanor that earns him the title of senior statesman. Joe ran and won on three separate occasions as Ward 8 councilman.

Former Mayor Joseph Walsh did the math Sunday. In the 44 years since he first was elected, Joe served 18 years on the City Council before retiring in 2018. As Walsh notes, whether in or out of office, Joe was always there. Former Mayor Lincoln Chafee, a Republican who had also served with him on the council, named him director of the Board of Canvassers. While serving in that role, he took on the added responsibility of directing the Department of Human Services.

“He loved the fact that he was able to help people,” Walsh said.

Joseph McGair remembers another side to Joe.

“I was just a kid,” McGair recalls of first meeting Joe at the wake of his father, Joseph Gallucci, who served as Warwick police chief.

“He was a gentleman.”

McGair was an assistant city solicitor working out of the prosecution office of the Police Department. Late one night, as McGair reviewed cases he would be handling the following morning, Joe – who had been attending a Board of Public Safety meeting – spotted McGair. He questioned why he was still at work at 11 p.m. Joe was impressed by McGair’s devotion and told him he saw no reason why McGair couldn’t bring the records home despite the practice not to let them leave the department.

Later, when McGair was elected to the council and Gallucci was council president, the two had an unspoken understanding to call a recess when meetings dragged on into the early morning hours. They had previously arranged to have City Sergeant Joe Joyce pick up hot fudge sundaes or pizzas so when Joe inquired whether McGair had something to say, he knew the delivery was made and it was time for a recess.

McGair said Joe “never got rattled, he was even throughout.” He “never punished people” for disagreeing with him or failing the vote the way he hoped.

Former Mayor Joseph Solomon remembers more than the years he and Gallucci served on the council together. In a text, Solomon said Joe has been “a member of my family for 45 years. We shared both good times and bad, happy times and sad. He was like an uncle to Representative Solomon since birth.” Solomon said he always depended on Gallucci for sound advice.

Flaherty said Joe was “warm hearted and empathetic … he always wanted to serve.” Observing that Joe was a part of the community regardless of whether he held an elective office or not. Flaherty called him “a constant.”

Mayor Frank Picozzi said Joe “always had a commanding presence.” Joe complimented him on becoming Warwick’s first Italian-American mayor, which may not be the case given reports that Mayor Joseph Mills changed his Italian name.

As Picozzi notes, Joe was always impeccably dressed. And even during those election nights before results were tallied electronically and people jammed into the Board of Canvassers seeking to learn the outcome, Joe, tie straight, starched shirt and wearing a jacket, would calmly take control.

“He was a gentle giant,” says Donna McDonald, who met Joe when she was a volunteer for Mayor Joe Walsh’s campaign in 1976. Almost 20 years later, she worked alongside Joe in the Board of Canvassers. They became good friends and she learned to listen to Joe not only for what he had to say but also because he spoke softly. She was there to support him when Joe lost his wife, Mary Ann, and then the cats that he so adored.

“He was a true public servant,” she said.

McGair recalled the 1984 primary for the party’s nomination and the night it ended. Flaherty and his people were watching returns at the New Farm Super Club – now a housing development – in Pawtuxet. When the outcome was evident, McGair drove over to the club. He was greeted with a few catcalls that abruptly ended when he took the microphone and congratulated Flaherty. As McGair was leaving, Joe was arriving to do the same thing.

“You don’t see that anymore,” McGair said of today’s political environment. “People have hatred for each other.”

Joe personified an era where differences of opinions or party labels didn’t make enemies. Warwick is a better place for having Joe.

He leaves so many friends, the mark of a man who truly cared for others.

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