Former State Senate candidate Matt Titone prevailed in a marathon Staten Island Democratic County Committee Convention that I am very angry that I wasn’t allowed to be part of , to select who will run in the March 27 special election to replace the late John Lavelle last night. Titone defeated Supreme Court deputy chief clerk Bob Olivari, the late Assemblyman’s son Danny and another former State Senate Candidate Kelvin Alexander, who I would have supported at least in the Convention that ended at 12:30 AM’s first ballot. I ultimately would have switched support to Titone after early balloting placed Kelvin at a distant 4th.

Danny Lavelle unlocked the convention by throwing his support to Titone after it became apparent that he wasn’t going to win.

Despite finishing way out of the money, Alexander , the founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, is on the ballot as the Independence Party nominee. Although I would have supported Alexander at the Democratic Convention, my vote will go to Titone in the Special Election.

Alexander is a member of the County Committee and should not jeopardize a safe Democratic seat by siphoning votes from Titone, who would normally attract 70 percent of the vote in an election against Republican Rose Margarella. Margarella, a junior high social studies teacher received 28 percent of the vote against Lavelle in November.

The Staten Island Democratic Association, the Island’s progressive Democratic club, hosted a forum for candidates seeking to fill the late John Lavelle’s vacant North Shore 61st State Assembly District seat Thursday night at the American Grill, which was packed with onlookers and 11 office seekers.

There will be no primary. A relatively small cabal of County Committee members residing in the 61st AD will decide who gets the nomination. I moved to the 61st AD from the 63rd 2 days after Election Day. I was supposed to have been appointed to the County Committee back in June, but somehow I was never officially added, so I may be not be part of the cabal making the nominating decision.

Most Staten Island democrats live in the borough’s North Shore and those aspiring to run for office representing that part of the Island typically have to wait in line for a chance to do so. This is why 11 people at the forum sought the nomination, while there may be no Democratic candidate to contest Council special election winner Vincent Ignizio’s newly vacant South Shore Assembly seat, if his opponent Manny Innamorato doesn’t seek to represent the heavily Republican South Shore in Albany.

John Lavelle did not die in vain. A few hours before his death, while at Wednesday’s Council candidate Manny Inamorato's Beekman Pub fundraiser, I learned Lavelle donated his organs with one of his kidneys saving the recipient’s life.

Unless prohibited by religious belief or medical condition, it’s a no brainer to donate organs postmortem. The former Staten Island political boss and legislator positively impacted people, even in death. We all can do likewise by joining organ donor lists.

My favorite organ donor story is that of JJ Greenberg, the son of the former US Holocaust Memorial chair. He died after being hit by a car while bicycling in Israel. His organs saved six people including a Palestinian in need of a liver.

New York State Assemblyman and Staten Island Democratic Party chair John Lavelle died 10:20 pm in Richmond University Medical Center last night from stroke related complications . He would have turned 58 on Friday.

Lavelle suffered the stroke shortly after midnight last Friday morning in the bathroom of popular Staten Island Democrat hang out Jody's Club Forrest, just after addressing the Young Democrats of Richmond County.

Lavelle, a former Met Life executive, became party chair in 1999 and was elected to the Assembly in 2000. He is also a former president of the borough's most progressive Democratic political club, Staten Island Democratic Association (SIDA), which I belong to.

He is survived by sons, John, Christopher, and Daniel and three grandchildren.

The wake will be at Harmon's Funeral Home, 571 Forest Avenue, Saturday, 7:00 - 9:00 P.M., and Sunday, 2:00 - 4:00 and 7:00 - 9:00 P.M. The funeral will be Monday at 10:00 A.M. at St. Peter's Church, 53 St. Marks Place.

One of Lavelle’s kidney’s was used to save someone else’s life just before his death.

Concern about issues such as poverty and civil rights fueled his political activism.

John was a man of integrity and stood by Steve Harrison when the national Democratic Party began trying to promote Brooklyn Council member Bill de Blasio as a candidate to oppose Vito Fossella for a Congressional seat in a district he neither lived in nor represented a single person in, several weeks after the Island party executive committee unanimously endorsed Harrison. Lavelle would have none of this and successfully helped convince Bill not to challenge Steve.