Ed Staback, former state representative and Lackawanna County commissioner, dies

Nov. 23—Ed Staback, a respected longtime state representative who later served briefly as a Lackawanna County commissioner, died Saturday during one of his regular hunting trips to Nebraska with his son.

"He always looked forward to that, he always talked about going," said Jim Wansacz, a colleague of Staback's as a state representative and county commissioner. "If there's one thing that he was able to do, something that he loved, it was be with his son during that (trip)."

Staback, who grew up in Olyphant and lived in Archbald, was 85 years old. Active politically as chairman of Archbald's Democrats and the surrounding state legislative district, he served as a credit analyst for 25 years before winning his first election in 1984 to represent the 115th House District. The district included the county's Midvalley and Upvalley and part of Wayne County. He won another 13 two-year terms, mostly overwhelmingly or unopposed. He retired from the House in 2012 when the district's towns were reapportioned to other districts and the 115th shifted exclusively to Monroe County.

The cause of death was unknown. Staback suffered a heart attack in February 1993 and underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery in June 1998, but returned to a full life after that.

As a representative, Staback became known for advocating hunting and fishing rights. Wansacz, who considered Staback a mentor, said fellow Democrats viewed him as the go-to legislator on sportsmen's and outdoors issues. Staback chaired the House Game & Fisheries Committee for several years and served as top-ranking Democratic member during other House sessions.

He pushed for legalized Sunday hunting, a goal that eluded him while in office, but eventually came to at least partial fruition a few years ago. He did obtain a break on hunting and fishing license fees for veterans returning from overseas deployments. As Game & Fisheries chairman, he led a rewrite of state game law that sharply increased the penalty for poaching deer and other wildlife outside of hunting seasons.

Staback helped secure millions of dollars for local projects that reclaimed hundreds of acres of abandoned mine land, extinguished a mine fire, expanded game lands, controlled flooding or created or upgraded parks. Ed Staback Memorial Park in Archbald, built on former mining land, is named after him.

Instantly visible in a crowd because of his hair, all white, and height, 6 feet 5 inches, Staback generally avoided the spotlight, colleagues said. He defined the word reserved.

"Ed was old school," said Laure Carlo, his district director for 25 1/2 years.

In Harrisburg, Staback employed a secretary, a chief of staff and no one else. Carlo said he regularly underspent his allocated budget.

"You could hire extra people, do extra things, but he would hand money in at the end of the year," Carlo said.

If he cursed in a woman's presence, Staback quickly apologized for his language. When a woman entered a room, he stood up. Staback prided himself on constituent service with no problem deemed too small. If someone complained about a leaky roof, he didn't dismiss it as outside a legislator's job description. Instead, he suggested calling someone he knew who knew an affordable roofer.

Routinely, meetings with everyday people seeking help lasted well beyond what his frustrated staff deemed appropriate.

In 1999, Staback wanted to replace retiring Lackawanna County Commissioner Ray Alberigi as Commissioner Joe Corcoran's Democratic running mate. Corcoran and the county Democratic Party had other ideas and Staback did not challenge the party choices — Corcoran and Randy Castellani — by running on his own.

"That is not my way," he said at the time.

Staback eventually got his wish.

In March 2015, after Commissioner Corey O'Brien resigned, a panel of county judges, acting at the Democratic Party's recommendation, tapped Staback to serve the rest of O'Brien's term, which ended the following January. Staback did not seek election to a full-term in November 2015.

Staback served with commissioners Patrick O'Malley and Wansacz in a rare all-Democratic board of commissioners.

For someone who knew he would serve less than a year, "his work ethic was unparallelled," Wansacz said.

"He showed up every day, he did not take it for granted that he was there just a short time," he said. "He wanted to make a difference. He wanted to be involved in what was happening and do what he believed was best in his time. And that was the type of guy he was."

Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9147; @BorysBlogTT on Twitter.