Newark mayor runs for 13th straight term
Al ‘Mr. Newark’ Nagy says his focus has always been helping those with needs
NEWARK >> Alan L. Nagy is a name Newark voters have seen on their ballots election after election since 1980.
But the current mayor and 40year City Council fixture prefers to go by Al to keep things simple, just like his style in campaigning and leading the city.
Only one challenger in the Nov. 3 election stands in 79-year- old Nagy’s way of winning his 13th consecutive term and entering his 41st year on the City Council.
“He’s really Mr. Newark,” said Dave Smith, the former 33-year mayor of Newark, who was first persuaded to run for council by his friend, Nagy, in 1976.
In a city with no term limits, Nagy may be the longest serving council member for consecutive years in the Bay Area, and there’s only a short list of people who even come close, including his buddy, Smith. Nat Bates has served about 38 years on the Richmond City Council since 1967, but not consecutively.
Friends, colleagues and Nagy himself say he keeps getting reelected because of his affection for Newark, affinity for helping others and propensity for doing what he says he’ll do.
“He was here before me,” Smith said. “He wanted the best for the city, no matter what the issue was, and that is a philosophy that he has carried through to today.”
“People like him and there’s a reason why,” John Becker, Newark’s former city manager for 28 years, said in an interview. “He’s a straight shooter, he treats people fairly and he follows up and follows through on things.
“His personal persona is exactly the same as his political persona. I don’t really separate the two because what you see is what you ge.,
Nagy, who spent his early years in Washington, D.C., moved to the Bay Area with his family as a boy. He attended Carlmont High School while living in San Carlos and moved to Newark with his wife Connie, where they could afford a home and raise their daughter, Maryann.
He worked for 45 years at SRI International in Menlo Park before retiring as a project manager.
He spent his first 12 years in Newark volunteering and doing community service projects, mostly through the Junior Chamber International organization, known as the JCs, where he aged out in his late 30s.
“I still had a lot of energy. I wanted to do something,” Nagy said.
Even though Nagy said he never envisioned himself getting into politics, he decided to run for the council in 1980.
Nagy didn’t have to dream up a complicated campaign plan to win over people in Newark.
“As it turns out, the strategy was just to knock on doors and present your story to people,” Nagy said. “The fact that I had been working in the community for about 12 years, I think people saw that and appreciated that.”
It doesn’t hurt that Newark is small. While the city is growing, with thousands of new homes either built, under construction or in planning stages since 2015, its population still is less than 50,000.
“Newark is a small enough community, where you literally — because we’re 3 miles end to end —