GLOVERSVILLE — Lou Nicolella may have been almost 82 when he died Monday, but in the recent letter he wrote blasting the Fulton County Board of Supervisors there were no signs of aging or the Parkinson’s disease that put him in a nursing home.

“For crying out loud, when will the Board of Supervisors change their attitude toward their employees?” Nicolella wrote in a letter to the editor that was also sent to the board.

Nicolella, always an advocate of working people, was angry that the board — on which he sat for many years — refused to provide free coffee for employees at the county-owned Residential Health Care Facility.

For the past few years, Nicolella not only resided at the facility, he was president of its Residents’ Council.

Excoriating the board for its decision, he said, “as a former supervisor on the board it is not hard to see that this board acts the same as previous boards — they take care of the ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ and forget the little people that work for them.”

It was typical Nicolella, a former Gloversville mayor and once perhaps the county’s most powerful Democrat.

“No one pulled the wool over his eyes,” said Anthony “Chart” Buanno, the dean of the county board, who worked with and against Nicolella over the years.

Buanno, originally a Democrat who later changed his enrollment to Republican, takes credit for introducing Nicolella to politics in the late 1950s. While both served on the Common Council, Buanno said, they helped avoid city tax increases for three consecutive years.

As Buanno lured Nicolella to politics, Nicolella recruited his nephew, Frank Lauria, to the calling a couple of decades later. Lauria, Gloversville’s 2nd Ward supervisor, said residents may want to think of his uncle when they see a city bus go by. Nicolella founded the Gloversville Transit System, which now serves Fulton County and parts of Montgomery County.

He also founded the city loan agency and served for many years as its president. Lauria said the agency, which has since merged with the Fulton County Economic Development Corp., loaned millions of dollars over the last 28 years, helping numerous local businesses either start or expand.

As part of his loan agency duties, Nicolella, former councilman Henry Buggeln and EDC officials saved the Argersinger Department Store building on North Main Street, converting it into offices.

EDC Executive Vice President Jeff Bray recalls Nicolella as both entertaining and hard working. “We really developed a nice working relationship with Lou,” Bray said. He said Nicolella was known for showing up with unconventional pasta dishes he cooked and, sometimes, his homemade wine. “He could make wine out of anything,” Bray said.

“You weren’t sure what was in it,” Bray said of the pasta dishes, “but you trusted him and ate it anyway.”

Nicolella was always as hospitable as he was informal. On a late Friday afternoon when the day’s work was done and he was in a good mood, a visitor to his office — if in good stead — might be directed to the bathroom off his office, where the sink was full of ice and stuffed with beer.

The probable low point of his public career occurred in the mid-1990s, when he was serving as a Fulton County election commissioner and a female colleague filed a sexual harassment complaint with the state Division of Human Rights. He resigned that post in 1993.

Perhaps the man most intertwined in Nicolella’s political career was Gene Reppenhagen. Nicolella defeated the Republican in a close mayoral election in 1977 and then Reppenhagen returned the favor in 1981, winning that contest by only five votes. Nicolella challenged that outcome in court and lost there, too.

“He was certainly a central figure in my life,” said Reppenhagen, recalling how their relationship was often hostile in those campaign years but how they later became friends.

In 1981, Reppenhagen said all his campaign advertisements carried the symbol of a one-way street. “One-Way Lou,” the ads all said, a take-off on Nicolella’s proposal to make a number of streets one-way for reasons of fire safety. Reppenhagen said he used it as a theme to suggest Nicolella was no longer listening to residents on the issues.

Campaigning aside, Reppenhagen said it was always apparent “Lou was extremely concerned about the future of Gloversville. And no matter how bitter it got, it was never beyond Lou to get beyond the politics and say, ‘Let’s go have a Manhattan.’ ”

When Reppenhagen recently visited the nursing home, he said Nicolella was prompt in reminding him that the next time he visited he had better bring the Manhattans.

To Lauria he was not only an uncle but a mentor. When Lauria was on the Common Council and the Republican mayor refused to call on him and give him the floor, he said he turned for advice to Nicolella, who knew every political maneuver. When at the next council meeting the mayor ignored his raised hand, Lauria said he took his uncle’s advice and suddenly stood.

“Point of order,” Lauria recalls interjecting. “You have to recognize the representative standing ... Roberts’ Rules of Order.”

When a colleague asked him where he learned that, Lauria proudly responded: “Apparently you never served under Lou Nicolella.”

Lauria also recalls his own free coffee debacle. As mayor, Nicolella made it a custom at City Hall to provide free coffee for employees and the public. The cost-conscious council fought over cutting that amenity but split 6-6. Nicolella, empowered by the City Charter to break the tie, saved the coffee, voting against his nephew.

“I thought it was my job to save the taxpayers’ money,” Lauria said.

And now the coffee issue returns. When Nicolella sent his recent letter to the editor criticizing the county board, he sent a copy to the man who holds his old board seat — Lauria.

“After 30 years,” said Lauria, speaking reverentially of his uncle, “we’re still arguing about a cup of coffee.”

When Nicolella left City Hall at the end of December 1981, he read a statement exhorting the new Reppenhagen administration to avoid partisanship and maintain open government.

“I care for my city and all its residents, be they my friends or otherwise,” he said. “I will never give up on Gloversville and Gloversville must never give up on itself,” was his closing line.

Nicolella’s survivors include his wife of 59 years, Jeanne; a son, Lou, and a daughter, June.

Calling hours are from 5 to 8 p.m. today at the Finocan Funeral Home. Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the funeral home with the Very Rev. Donald Czelusniak officiating.