Although it has been almost 15 years since he stepped down as mayor, Steven Cappiello has never really left City Hall. It’s true in a literal sense, as the 76-year-old spends 20 hours a week in the venerable old Washington Street building serving as president of the city’s Credit Union, but it is true in a larger sense as well. In a wide-ranging interview in his first floor City Hall office last week, Cappiello said that city residents still approach him with their ideas about how to improve city life and their complaints about the way the city is changing. And he even suggested that he may run for mayor again in 2001. “If enough people tell me that I should do it, they might just push me hard enough that I won’t be able to push back,” Cappiello said, after a hearty laugh at the idea. “I get a lot of people who come to me and say, why don’t you just get in there for a little while and straighten things out. These are not people to laugh at or take lightly. They are concerned about the heavy-handed attitude that sometimes comes off from this administration towards everyday people.” “But I have to say,” Cappiello continued, “that my wife told somebody who asked that she would kill me if I did it.” If Cappiello were to throw his hat in the ring for the 2001 race, he would not be the first Hudson County mayor to make a comeback at an advanced stage of life. Mayor Robert Sabello of Guttenberg was sworn in last month for his second term after spending 19 years out of office. Sabello is 80. “I laughed when Sabello made a comeback,” Cappiello said. “But ever since then people have been giving me a little nudge and saying if he can do it, why can’t you?” Before he makes a decision, Cappiello said that he would look at who the candidates were and what they had to offer the city. “I want to see a high quality class of government brought to this city,” he explained, “and I’m not afraid to lend my voice in support of some of the people out there who can do it. But you can’t just go around wielding an axe if you hope to get elected. I want to see what people will put forward.” Mayor Anthony Russo said that he would welcome Cappiello to the race if he chooses to run. “I wish him good luck if that is what he wants to do,” he said. “Competition is good in these sorts of things, and whoever runs will run on their record.” Cappiello served from 1973 until 1985, when residents who were angry with the city’s gentrification voted him out of office. In his place, they elected Tom Vezzetti, who was seen as a reformer who would protect long-time tenants and release the city from old-time politics. Vezzetti died of a heart attack in 1988 and was replaced by Pat Pasculli, who served one full term and was then succeeded by current mayor Russo. Cappiello, a former police sergeant and city councilman, said that his style of governing the city was very different from the mayors who have succeeded him. “I went to maybe 10 percent of the city council meetings,” he said. “While they were going on, I was usually out doing something hands-on like shoveling snow, or riding around in a police radio car, or maybe even going over to the fire station for a meal.” Cappiello admitted that the city had changed a great deal since he last sat behind the mayor’s desk. “When I started, it was difficult for us to fill up the garages on Hudson Street,” he said. “We had to encourage people from New York to park there because it was cheaper and we were still spending $650,000 a year to maintain them.” Now, he says that the biggest challenge for the city is coping with the development that it has incurred recently. “We’re in a wait-and-see situation in terms of development,” he said. “The question is what impact will all this development have on congestion, sewer lines, and infrastructure. I would hope that they would slow it down a little bit, but that is almost impossible at this point since there is almost no place left to build.” Looking back on the time that he spent in office, Cappiello said that he was most proud of the agreement that his administration was able to broker with the Port Authority to redevelop the waterfront. “There was a lot that happened behind the scenes that people were not aware of,” he said. “There were several congressmen who were reluctant to let the piers be placed in the city’s hands because they hoped to get projects of their own, and of course there were the mayors of Elizabeth and Newark who were jumping all over the Port Authority asking for something for them too. But the trick was just to do what you could to get the most for your city.” When asked what his biggest mistake was in office, Cappiello said that he wished that he had acted more decisively to turn over a small portion of the waterfront to developers who wanted to build large residential buildings. “We had an opportunity to bring in some of the finest tenants in the world and build a minimal number of skyscrapers along the waterfront,” he explained, “but people who were concerned about the height of the buildings began calling me ‘high-rise Steve’ and it was never done. And still today it is still not really done.” Even though he is considering another run for office, Cappiello did not seem to be distressed about the idea of standing on the sidelines during the 2001 race if that is ultimately what he decides to do. “I’ve been a very lucky, lucky fellow,” he said. “I’ve got a wonderful wife and a solid family and that is really all that I need.”