Pat Melillo died Wednesday at 83

As the years went by, I didn’t hear from Pat Melillo much. As a Wallingford reporter in the mid to late 1980s, I probably saw him at a town meeting or talked to him on the phone once a week. No action by town government seemed to escape him. As I moved from the front lines to the rear guard of the R-J, I kept up with him on the local government access channel. Even though he had no official position, he was my favorite character in the every other week, 3-plus hour, drama known as the Town Council meeting. His unique voice and common sense approach made him stand out. Above all, he was relentless. Most importantly, he cared about his hometown. He was also a Record-Journal watchdog.

Usually when we forget to run something in the R-J, it doesn’t make me happy. But when we left out that small item on town meetings we call “Week Ahead” there was a silver lining. Pat Melillo would notice first thing Monday and call me. Sometimes he’d reach me in person; other times he’d leave me a voicemail. Either way, it pleased me to hear from him. I admired “Mr. Melillo” (When we first met he was about 60 and looked older and I was 22 and looked like a teenager so I couldn’t call him Pat. I continued as a sign of respect). The last time we spoke he was explaining for the umpteenth time how important it was to get the complete meeting schedule in the Monday paper because if we didn’t the residents of Wallingford wouldn’t be able to participate. “Sorry about that Mr. Melillo,” I’d say. “We’ll get it in tomorrow. How have you been?”