Henry J. Mello, 80; Legislator Wrote Key Funding Bill

Former state Senate Majority Leader Henry J. Mello, 80, who represented California’s Central Coast in the Legislature for two decades, died Saturday of kidney failure at his home in Watsonville, Calif.

Mello was elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors in 1966, to the state Assembly in 1976 and to the state Senate in 1980. He was forced to leave office in 1996 because of term limits.

Mello had wide-ranging policy interests, including the preservation of agricultural land, the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary, water management, bilingual education and the arts.

He was the coauthor, with Mike Roos, of the Mello-Roos Act, which has provided funding for school construction and other uses since Proposition 13 was enacted in 1978.