Salvatore C. Bille, 94, a retired deputy chief of the West New York, NJ, Police Department. His tenure as head of the W.N.Y. police department, 1973-1975, was remarkable for having been scandal-free. This gritty town, located directly across the Hudson from Manhattan, was infamous for official corruption since the 1890s. In 1956 W.N.Y. police were arrested trying to protect the Mafia in an incident that led to FBI involvement in November 1957. From the time Bille joined the department in 1946, he advocated for reform. He was eventually elected president of the local chapter of the New Jersey Police Benevolent Association, and under his leadership, the officers voted to adopt the civil service system so that hiring and promotion would be based upon merit, instead of political patronage. Bille had refused to participate in "pay for promotion" and was long denied advancement until he threatened to file suit. After Bille retired in 1975, corruption again became rampant in West New York, culminating in 1995 when the FBI indicted and convicted a W.N.Y. police chief and took control of the police department, placing it under civil authority. Before World War II, Bille was well-known throughout the Mid-Atlantic states as a basketball coach and promoter of sports and entertainment. Some of Frank Sinatra' s earliest public appearances were at events Bille organized. His team, the MacDonalds, was top-ranked and played professionally against such competitors as the Boston Celtics and the Harlem Globetrotters. He also managed the career of his future wife, Marie LaMorte, who played for the Jersey Red Girls, the team that captured the national women' s basketball championship in 1939. During World War II, he was assigned to organizing and running athletic events for all Allied troops stationed in North Africa, the staging area for the invasion of Southern Europe. Players he coached before and during the war became the nucleus for the formation of the National Basketball Association. In the early ' 70s Bille organized the Alumni Association of Memorial High School in West New York and served as its first president. He also headed the West New York chapter of the Knights of Columbus. In 1975 Bille moved to Margate, FL. He and his wife continued to compete in athletics and won several medals in the Senior Olympics. In 1990 they relocated to Sun City, where he attained the rank of Gold Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League and traveled widely to compete in tournaments, instruct on cruise ships and direct various bridge clubs.
He was predeceased by his wife, Marie, and his son, John, and is survived by his daughters, Constance Bille (Timothy Hayes), Rosemary Eckert, and Danielle Stutts (Charles); grandchildren, Dana DeLario, Toni Ann Curtis, William Hayes, Janet Hayes, and Colin and Wyatt Stutts; great-grandchildren; and many cousins, nieces and nephews.
Interment at Florida National Cemetery.