Michael W. Dominowski

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.—Tucked away in the back corner of the Staten Island Advance newsroom on Fingerboard Road —the spot everyone forgot about until they needed the archives or the candy bowl — was an alcove that, on lucky days, offered real Wisconsin cheese curds.

They came from Michael W. Dominowski, a Wisconsin native and sharp-minded opinion writer known simply as “Mike.”

Mike, 78, a meticulous and unflappable newsman who spent more than four decades in journalism across Wisconsin, Arizona and New York, died Saturday, March 14, 2026, at Richmond University Medical Center following a lung infection. He lived in West Brighton.

Born in Appleton, Wis., Mike was the oldest of 10 children of Ira Dominowski and Dolores Jenneman. He attended elementary and high school in Hortonville, Wis., where he discovered journalism early and served as editor of his school newspaper. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point in 1970, working as a reporter, photographer and eventually editor of The Pointer.

After college, Mike began his professional career as news editor of the Eastern Arizona Courier in Safford, Ariz. During his three years there, he produced an investigative series on local land fraud that led to reform of the Arizona land transaction recording law. It was the kind of dogged, community minded reporting that would become a hallmark of his career.

From 1976 to 1985, he worked as a reporter and wire service editor at the Daily Tribune in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., where he created a weekly page of commentary and opinion. Even then, colleagues remembered him as someone who could connect national issues to local life with uncommon clarity.

In 1985, Mike moved to Staten Island to join the Staten Island Advance, first working on the copy desk before taking on a major role in the newspaper’s technology transition. He wrote editorials, served as a member of the editorial board, edited the Sunday opinion section, Perspective, and oversaw a weekly technology page. In time, he became the Advance’s assistant managing editor for electronic media.

“Mike was a positive and cheerful force in the newsroom who always had time — and delicious Wisconsin cheese curds— for his colleagues. He was the embodiment of Midwestern nice, and he will be missed,” said former colleague Paul McPolin, who is now Sunday editor of the New York Post.

Mike’s opinion writing had range — and bite when he wanted it to. He had a gift for skewering the strange intersections of policy, business and everyday life. In one memorable column on energy regulation, he quipped that Spain had “taxed the daylights out of sunshine,” delighting in the absurdity of a country creating a tax not on income or property but on sunlight itself. He relished exposing bureaucratic complexities and making readers laugh at the same time.

Yet he was equally capable of writing in a sober, serious, historical key. His essays after 9/11 were empathetic toward victims, first responders and the Staten Islanders who bore such deep losses. He examined government power with caution and nuance, critical of excess, observant of overreach, but always in a way that transcended partisan viewpoints. His work reflected an internationalist’s curiosity and a thoughtful awareness of political transformations abroad.

To many readers and colleagues, Mike embodied the best of a Sunday opinion section: Reflective, data-rich, grounded in civic life and firmly above the fray of partisan bickering. Whether he was approaching a subject with wit (as in his Spain column) or with solemn, analytical clarity (as in his writing on 9/11 and its aftermath), he remained a thoughtful, big-picture interpreter of the world for everyday Staten Islanders.

“Mike was an extraordinary newsman who made all of us aspire to be better journalists,” noted Advance/SILive.com Executive Editor Brian Laline. “An old-school journalist, banging out stories on a manual typewriter when he began his career, he was probably the first in our newsroom to embrace technology as it came barreling toward us. He understood it, helped his colleagues understand it, and taught them how to use it. I was proud to work alongside him,” Laline said.

Mike retired from the Advance in 2013 but continued to actively pursue his news and political interests through online media. He never lost his reporter’s instinct or his love of a well-argued idea.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara (Kudla) Dominowski; daughter Mara Anne Burns; and two grandchildren, Saoirse Mary, 3, and Callum Michael, 18 months.

Visitation will be held at Harmon Funeral Home, 571 Forest Ave, Staten Island, New York 10310, on March 21, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

By Pamela Silvestri | [email protected]