Nutley: Olivo hopes to go from school board to Commissioner

NUTLEY - Family businessman Sal Olivo, 56, has served on the Nutley Board of Education for six years and now serves as that body’s board president. In the last election, he was the top vote-getter on the board. His current term comes to an end on April 15.

“I’d like to continue my public service as a member of the commission,” said the candidate, who wants to do a better job of sharing school and municipal services and improving town services overall.

Olivo comes from a line of proud Nutleyites and he’s hoping his family name and record helps translate into votes. His grandfather founded Blue Ribbon Coal, which has stayed in the family and is now called Blue Ribbon Fuel Oil under Olivo’s direction.

“We take a proactive approach to people’s heating systems, and do a lot of preventive maintenance, which is really what I think is needed in terms of how the town is run,” said Olivo. “Change is coming, and the challenge for us is how we manage that change.”

Olivo said as board president he helped secure drug testing for high
school athletes. Part of what makes Nutley special is respect for
authority and good values, he said.

Those are the qualities he took from Nutley High School to Arizona State University in the 1970s where he played middle guard in the Peach Bowl and three Fiesta Bowls.

He came back to Nutley with a teaching degree and was going to go into education but went to work for his father instead and ended up staying there as they took on more and more work.

He liked it out west. But he missed the seasons. Plus there was no ethnic food back then. Arizona was still relatively young. Mostly he missed Nutley.

“Geography is simple to those who have been here awhile,” said Olivo. “Nutley is the center of the universe.”