Plymouth (UK) 14/09/2011 - - 34th America's Cup - AC World Series - Plymouth 2011 - Naples venue announcement - Paolo Graziano, President Industrial Union; Gennaro Ferrara, Vicepresident of Naples Province; Stefano Caldoro, President of Region Campania; Luigi de Magistris, Mayor of Naples; Richard Worth, President ACEA; Tommaso Sodano, Vicemayor Naples; Riccardo Marone-President of Bagnolifutura. Photo: © ©2011 ACEA/Ricardo Pinto

One of the primary objectives of the municipal government led by the Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, has been to bring to Naples some major international events which may act as a catalyst for urban renewal and may provide an economic boost for the tourism industry. Three international events that are scheduled to take place during the next three years may help the Mayor meet his objective. The World Urban Forum, a high-level United Nations conference on cities, will take place in September 2012. The event, which will focus on sustainable urban development, rapid urbanization and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies, is expected to draw some 20,000 attendees, including world leaders, statesmen, businessmen and academics.

The Universal Forum of Cultures, which was set by the previous Mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, will take place from 21 April through 10 July 2013. Last month, Mayor de Magistris changed the leadership of the committee responsible for organizing the event, by replacing Nicola Oddati, a member of the Democratic Party and a former alderman for culture of the previous city government, with Roberto Vecchioni, a nationally-known singer and song writer of Neapolitan origins. The forum, which is sponsored by UNESCO, seeks to bring together citizens from a varied range of cultures, languages, and religions to promote inter-cultural dialogue and to encourage global civil society empowerment.

Naples will be hosting two races of the America’s Cup World Series in April 2012 and May 2013. Mayor de Magistris, together with Luigi Cesaro, President of the Province of Naples, Stefano Caldoro, Governor of the Campania Region, and with Paolo Graziano, president of the Naples Association of the Industry Leaders, and chairman of the America’s Cup Napoli (CAN), confirmed on 14 September 2011 that an agreement had been reached with America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA), which is responsible for the commercial side of the 34th America’s Cup, to hold the event in Naples.

The initial intention of the city, provincial and regional authorities was to hold the races in the bay of Pozzuoli, thus locating all of the support services and housing the teams in the area of Bagnoli, on a former industrial site on the seashore. Bagnoli had been the home to a major steel mill, ITALSIDER, a cement factory and a chemical plant. The whole area has been free from industrial production since 1994, but reclaiming the land and ridding it of pollutants has been an uphill road, full of technical, legal, political and financial obstacles that have slowed down the process. Cleaning the area has required complex technical solutions due to the type and amount of substances polluting the land and the seaside. The courts have been investigating, on the one hand, the legal responsibilities of company owners and managers who are accused of not having taken necessary measures to avoid the heavy chemical pollution of the area. The courts have also been investigating public officials and private entrepreneurs regarding the award of contracts for conducting the clean-up operation. The Bagnoli area has been at the center of a political battle between environmentalists who would like to see the area return to its original condition, with an immense beach open to the public, and other who would favor building a major tourist complex, with a well-equipped marina. In the turbulent context surrounding all activities in reclaiming the old industrial site, financial problems have surfaced with respect to funding from the European Union and the Italian government, mainly connected to suspicion created by the ongoing legal investigations.

Regrettably, after that the officials from Naples had signed the agreement with ACEA, a judge placed the landfill, which is part of the former industrial site, on which the regatta village was to be constructed, off-limits due to an ongoing investigation. The Court of Naples has not yet determined if the offer by ACN to place removable constructions on the landfill is acceptable. With only 108 days left to the first race, Naples is now scrambling to adopt “plan B”, which would place the races in the actual Bay of Naples, locating all the support services on the main waterfront, to include the Villa Comunale (city gardens). If “plan B” goes into effect, Naples might be able to complete all necessary work prior to the race because the area of Via Caracciolo (the main road on the waterfront) is ample and the city gardens immediately behind the road could provide enough organized and well served space for hosting all of the support services for the different teams.

Closing Via Caracciolo to city traffic for the duration of the event will be a major challenge for both city administrators and for people going from one side of town to the other.  The next 100+ days leading to the first race of the race will be quite challenging for everyone in Naples.

The limited traffic zone in the Naples historical center

Anthony M. Quattrone

The Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, is resolutely proceeding with sweeping reforms aiming at making Naples a “normal” city.  On 22 September 2011, his city government implemented a new limited traffic zone(the acronym “ZTL” appears in the press and on the traffic signs), effectively closing automotive traffic to all non-residents in the historical city center from 07:30 to 18:00 daily. The purpose of the ZTL is to preserve the historical center, cut down on carbon emissions, improve the flow of traffic, reduce noise, eliminate illegal parking, and curb the illegal utilization of traffic lanes reserved for public transportation.  The full implementation of the ZTL in Naples will take effect at the end of October, when closed circuit television systems for monitoring the traffic flow in and out of the concerned areas and electronic governed barriers should be in place.

The immediate reaction by citizens was mixed.  While the overwhelming majority of persons interviewed by the press appeared to support the Mayor’s decision, a small group of inhabitants and merchants of the Cavone area near Piazza Dante held a demonstration on the evening of 22 September, where some protesters overturned garbage bins and blocked bus and taxi traffic for several hours.  Mayor de Magistris reacted to the protest stating that he was not going to let anyone intimidate him and that it was obvious that the decisions of the City had “touched some old accumulated mucky interests”, suggesting possible organized crime involvement in the protest.  Giuseppe Narducci, the city official responsible for security, has no doubts that “the Camorra organized the raid”. According to Francesco Nicodemo, a spokesperson for the Naples provincial federation of the Democratic Party, “it is shameful that a limited traffic zone can be boycotted by a camorra boss.  The honest Neapolitans, who are the overwhelming majority of the citizens, have once again had to suffer at the hands of the clans.”  For Nicodemo, because organized crime is challenging the State, “the civilized part of Naples, the institutions, the police forces, the parties, the associations, and all honest citizens cannot surrender: they must be even more united”.

The day after the demonstration, a group of merchants from the Piazza Dante area condemned the violence but asked the Mayor to reconsider the implementation of the new traffic limits, stating that their businesses would be heavily damaged by the traffic limits.  According to the merchants, they were set to lose about 50 percent of their business because it would be expensive and inconvenient for customers to reach the limited traffic zone for shopping.  The merchants accuse the administration of not involving all stakeholders in the decision making process and that it is underestimating the damage to the local economy.

The city in proceeding with its implementation of the limited traffic zone reinforcing local police patrols on 24 hour shifts and by adding a new bus service, number 55, which makes a circular round on the periphery of the traffic limited zone ensuring that travellers can reach all areas of the limited zone and that they can easily connect with other public transportation stations and stops.

See the map of the limited traffic zone for the historical center

Participatory democracy in action: Deputy Mayor Tommaso Sodano takes questions from citizens and listens to their proposals in an open-air assembly in Bagnoli on 29 July 2011.

Anthony M. Quattrone

The election of Luigi de Magistris on 31 May 2011 has coincided with a renewed sense of citizenship on the part of many Neapolitans who have become disheartened towards the political process.  During the latest rounds of local and national elections, Neapolitans have demonstrated their unhappiness by simply not going to vote or by voiding their ballot in the privacy of the poll booth.  The “non-vote party” has hovered in the 35 to 40 percent range reaching a enduring level of disaffection towards all political sides.  A famous Neapolitan actor, Beppe Barra, during a concert in support of the electoral campaign of Luigi de Magistris’ for the post of Mayor  bluntly warned the candidate on 13 May 2011: “Luigi, please don’t disappoint me!”  Many citizens in Naples feel that the election of Luigi de Magistris is a last-ditch bid to save whatever is left of the glorious capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, conquered by the North 150 years ago and annexed to the newly formed Italian state.  Some historical revisionist analysts feel that Neapolitans first became disillusioned by Italian politics exactly 150 years ago, when the Capital was downgraded to a mere province in the new Italian state, and the northern Italian conquerors made ill thought political agreements with members of organized crime, the Camorra, making them become the first police commissioners. Neapolitan disenchantment with politics and total distrust of politicians started with the unification of Italy and has basically persisted to this day.

However, with the election of Luigi de Magistris, Naples appears to have become a sort of laboratory for participatory democracy, bottom-up initiatives, and social innovation.  On the participatory democracy front, the new mayor has kept his promise, so far, to consult with stakeholders prior to implementing policies, with the intention of making citizens part of the decision making process.  De Magistris and members of his City Government have taken their policies to the street holding open air assemblies in several neighborhoods, where citizens were given the opportunity to put forward challenging questions and where the mayor and his team have been required to provide candid and straightforward answers. The Mayor has also made time at City Hall to receive social action groups and private citizens interested in providing him with their view on all aspects of governing the City.  De Magistris has stated that 90 percent of the meetings are about issues of general interest while only 10 percent pertain to “personal” matters.  He commented also that most of the meetings produce a wealth of raw information not readily available to City Government officials and, in many cases, citizens also provide reasonable solutions.  The deputy mayor, Tommaso Sodano, for example, held a fiery meeting with several hundred residents of the western neighborhood of Bagnoli, on 29 July 2011, to discuss several practical topics related to living conditions, such as getting more police on the streets, cleaning municipal gardens, picking up the garbage, improving the flow of traffic, and reducing noise at night caused by open air discotheques and hoards of kids roaming the streets.  Although the meeting, organized by the Assise Cittadina per Bagnoli (City Assembly for Bagnoli), was publicized only via leaflets and word of mouth, the participation was high.

Bottom-up initiatives keep flourishing in all neighborhoods.  Three groups that Naples Politics mentioned in a 12 June 2011 article in Naples Politics are still on the move and have not let up their work, receiving praise by citizens and attention in the media.  Two groups are directly involved in taking action to clean up neighborhoods and to take care of gardens, trees and plants.  CLEANAP (whose name comes from combining the English verb “to clean” with “Naples”, to form CLEANAP, which is pronounced like the English “clean up”) continues to tackle different squares and streets cleaning up monuments, scrubbing streets and walls, removing graffiti and garbage, while Friarielli Ribelli (“friarielli” refers to a local type of broccoli and “ribelli” means “rebels”) are involved in “guerilla gardening“, cutting weeds, taking care of the gardens, and planting flowers and plants.  Both groups have continued to make headlines by relentlessly going from one neighborhood to another attacking urban blight and degradation.  The third group, V.A.N.T.O, whose acronym stands for “pride”, is relentlessly documenting and denouncing damage and deterioration of monuments, churches, gardens and buildings in Naples, while indicating low cost methods for preventing future damage.  The leader of V.A.N.T.O, Angelo Forgione together with singer Eddy Napoli were received on 20 July 2011 by Mayor De Magistris who was particularly surprised by the documentation presented by the group and who promised to take get involved.

Naples is getting attention also from international promoters of social innovation.  The UniCredit Foundation, in collaboration with the European Network of Civil Society Leaders Euclid Network and Project Ahead has launched an international competition expiring on 10 August 2011 entitled “Social Innovation for Naples” in which social innovators from across the world are invited to offer innovative solutions to six problems encountered in the city of Naples.  According to a press release issued by the organizers, “Naples is the epitome of state and market failures, its recent history has been marred by a barrage of corruption and a culture that still does not believe in change. These on-going challenges provide the perfect test field for social innovation to move beyond being a ‘nice label’ and to having tangible impacts on the ground and demonstrating that the time for a new approach has arrived.”  According to the press release, the organizers “aim to succeed where all else has failed” and that they “are running a competition to attract the brightest and most creative minds from around the world which can solve selected challenges in Naples.”  The six problems or challenges identified by the organizers are: 1)  Turning a confiscated villa into a financially sustainable Social Business. 2) Making an abandoned Roman bath accessible and sustainable. 3) Creating a sustainable business plan for a volunteering organization. 4) Creating a sustainable business model for a nonprofit organization that works with school dropouts. 5) Creating an innovative new method for inclusion of the young Roma population. 6) Creating an innovative new method for recycling textiles sustainably.

An international panel of judges,  will select a winner for each of these fields of intervention who will receive a grant of €10,000 from UniCredit Foundation, and who, together with a previously identified local nonprofit organization, will turn the idea into a concrete program, drawing up an executive project and a business plan. The second phase of the initiative will consist of the assessment and possible implementation of the most effective projects.  More information for participating in the competition can be found at Naples 2.0 – International Social Innovation Competition.

The city of Naples is going through very interesting times with many citizens involved in participatory democracy, bottom-up initiatives, and social innovation. Neapolitan analysts, historians, politicians, and intellectuals are split between pessimists and optimists, with the former ready to bet that nothing will ever change in Naples, and the latter placing all their bets on the power of participatory democracy, bottom up initiatives, and social innovation. The Mayor and his team are with the optimists.

Aerial view of the port of Naples - waste may soon be leaving Naples by sea (photo by Antonio Retaggio)

Anthony M. Quattrone

The transfer of garbage from Naples and other cities in Campania to other regions in Italy is encountering a myriad of administrative, political, and technical obstacles, and the streets of the city are once again covered with about 2,400 tons of garbage.

The first obstacle encountered by the new administration headed by mayor Luigi de Magistris was the decision taken by the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio on 31 May 2011, the day that the new mayor was elected, that the procedure adopted by the Campania Region in transferring garbage to a commercial firm, Italcave, in Puglia violated the agreements between the governments of Campania and Puglia.  In particular, authorities complained that trucks from Campania were not sealed and that they were dispersing leachate on the road and bad odor in the areas that they drove through.  The arrangements with Puglia were to take care of 45,000 tons of garbage, but due to the decision by the tribunal only 1,131 tons were delivered to the commercial firm.

In the meantime, the President of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, had asked the central government, headed by his political ally Silvio Berlusconi, to issue a special legislative decree slightly changing the laws in force to allow Campania to transfer to firms in other Italian regions waste that was properly shredded and screened.  On 12 July 2011, forty-two days after that the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio had decided to block transfers from Campania to Puglia, the Berlusconi government enacted a decree partially allowing the transfer of waste.  The decree, which requires the approval of Parliament within sixty days, is heavily opposed by the Northern League, who will fight it during the upcoming discussions in the House and the Senate.

Finally, there is some good news for the administration, because today the Council of State, which is a higher administrative tribunal, suspended the decision taken on 31 May 2011 by the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio which had blocked the transfer of waste from Campania to Puglia, thus allowing the transfer of all properly shredded and screened waste currently sitting in temporary depots in Naples to firms in other regions.  It is now expected that trucks will soon be leaving Naples and other cities in Campania to export waste that will be processed for a fee by commercial companies throughout Italy.  Current legislation, however, places on the governors of each Region the responsibility for authorizing commercial firms to import and process waste.

Mayor Luigi de Magistris has learned the hard way that technical solutions which appear to be within reach are hard to implement when there are interest groups putting up roadblocks at every corner.  Garbage separation and recycling is working in every area of the city where it has been implemented using the “door-to-door” model.  Prior to implementing separation and recycling city-wide, it is necessary to remove from the streets the garbage sitting there and to free up the temporary depots.  The Mayor has issued a fourth city order which provides for the opening of a new temporary depot which will provide the city with necessary relief.

De Magistris has also announced that by the end of this week the city will sign an agreement with a foreign country willing to take Neapolitan waste.  He expressed concern that there is constant sabotage against every action that the city is taking to rid the streets of garbage because special interests want to force him and his administration to agree to the construction of a new incineration plant in the eastern side of Naples and to digging additional dumps.  De Magistris stated that he would not publicize yet the terms of the agreement and the country involved because “as we go along with our plan to make Naples autonomous in terms of waste management, we have noted that processing plants come to a full stop, transfer of waste is reduced, and there is an attempt to create dissent among sanitation workers”.

Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Porto_di_Napoli_2005_0602.jpg?uselang=it#metadata

The Mayor of Naples wants more video surveillance cameras downtown (photo from "Il Mattino" on line, 12 July 2011)

The new mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, who ran on a law-and-order platform during recent city elections, is pushing to increase the number of police video surveillance cameras in several locations in the city.  The Mayor wants more cameras downtown, especially in the main port and central train station areas, where tourists have been the subject of petty and violent crime over the past months.

The mayor met on 11 July 2011 with the Prefect of Naples, Andrea De Martino, at the prefecture government building in Naples to discuss the closed circuit TV system.  According to the Prefect, the main issue is not the installation of the cameras, but their maintenance.  There is a plan to add an additional 20 cameras to the ones already installed and connected to police headquarters.  The Mayor has announced that a feed from the state police closed circuit video surveillance system will now also reach municipal police headquarters. He has also told the Prefect that the city will seek funding from the Campania Region for the maintenance of the video surveillance system.

The mayor’s push, however, is encountering some difficulty due to the intricacies of the overall Italian police system, which is composed of different forces that, at times, get into each other’s way. The mayor, a former prosecutor, only controls municipal police, whose major mission is to direct traffic, enforce parking rules, and to ensure administrative compliance on the part of commercial activities.  The state police, who are under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, and the Carabinieri, who are part of the Ministry of Defense, perform overlapping duties with respect to security services in the city and, at times, also perform the duties of the municipal police.  The finance police, who are under the Minister of Economy and Finance, are responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling, but may be called to perform some of the same duties as the state police and the Carabinieri.

The Prefect, who is an official appointed by the central government, is responsible for providing security in the province under his control.  He must ensure that the activities of the Carabinieri, the state police, and the finance police are coordinated to the maximum extent possible to obtain best efficiency and to avoid misunderstandings between commanders and between units of the different security forces patrolling the territory.  The 11 July 2011 meeting between the Prefect and the Mayor will need to become a routine event if both parties are interested in providing the city with the highest level of security within existing budgetary limitations.

In Naples, municipal police have been the target of severe criticism due to their extreme tolerance of traffic and parking misbehavior on the part of particularly creative Neapolitan drivers who are notoriously allergic to traffic and parking rules and regulations.  On 1 July 2011, the mayor confirmed the appointment of the chief of municipal police, Colonel Luigi Sementa, on a fixed term contract for the next twelve months.  The mayor also announced that 106 new municipal cops had come into service and were already on the beat. The total municipal police force is now up to approximately 2,500, of which about two-thirds can be or are deployed to patrols.

The Mayor intends to use municipal police to increase the sense of security in the city on the part of citizens and tourists by increasing the number of policemen on patrols.  He also intends to have municipal police sanction violations with respect to waste management.  In particular, city police will be checking if commercial activities are respecting city deliberations regarding waste separation and the method and times for disposing of garbage.  Private citizens will also be subject to higher scrutiny on the part of city police, who will be on the lookout for the type of garbage placed on the streets and the time when citizens are dumping trash.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is flanked on his right by Stefano Calderoli, the outspoken Northern League minister who would like to use a flamethrower in Naples to resolve the garbage crisis, and on his left by the equally outspoken Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League and also a minister in the government. Both Calderoli and Bossi regularly make statements against the people of the south of Italy. (Photo from “Il Mattino” online, 3 July 2011).

Anthony M. Quattrone

The mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, is aiming at making Naples totally autonomous from the central government in terms of waste collection and management after that the Berlusconi government failed to come to the city’s help with an emergency decree which would have allowed Naples to export garbage to other regions.  In Italy, only special waste can be moved from one region to another, with the permission of the governor of each region, to be processed in specialized plants.  Ordinary waste cannot be transferred unless a special temporary decree is issued by the central government.  Naples needs a place to dump or process its garbage until the end of the year, when the door-to-door waste collection system and new compost sites are scheduled to be in place.

On 30 June 2011, the Berlusconi government issued a decree with numerous caveats which make the transfer of ordinary waste from Campania to other regions slow and difficult.  The decree also emphasized that all Neapolitan waste should be kept in southern Italian regions. The Berlusconi government was unable to approve a better decree because of the opposition of the Northern League ministers who hold the prime minister under check because their votes are needed to keep his government alive.

The Neapolitan daily, “Il Mattino” reported on 1 July 2011, criticism expressed by the Italian President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, and by the Cardinal of Naples, Crescenzio Sepe.  The President noted that the decree basically fails to provide the city with tools to climb out of the trash emergency.  Cardinal Sepe stated that the decree offends the dignity of Naples and does not respect the rights of its citizens.  In an interview, Berlusconi defended himself stating that he does not hold the 51% of the seats in Parliament, so he must make compromises with the Northern League.  Racist comments from Northern League politicians and some journalists have abounded during the past days.  Stefano Calderoli, a Northern League minister, announced that he is willing to work on the problems in Naples by using a flamethrower, while journalist Oscar Giannino looks forward to an explosion on the part of Mount Vesuvius for Naples to become a civilized society.

Resentment in Naples against the Northern League has now reached its all-time peak, with several restaurants and stores placing notices that they refuse to serve members of the Northern League.  Several consumer groups sprung up over the Internet requesting followers to boycott northern Italian products and to “buy south”.  Even the moderate Stefano Caldoro, the President of the Campania Region and member of Berlusconi’s center right coalition, is looking for retaliatory measures against the north.  Caldoro is now seeking to conduct a special inventory regarding all toxic waste that Campania imports from the north of Italy.  The Party of the South, a small formation which is part of the original coalition that has supported Luigi de Magistris’ bid for mayor, concerned about the de facto alliance created between the Northern League and organized crime, has called for a “democratic presidium” to be formed, to include the national unions and the associations representing entrepreneurs to assist the Mayor in informing citizens on the way ahead and in getting their participation in resolving the crisis, bottom-up.  The Party has also called on the Mayor to seek the assistance of Cardinal Sepe to inform citizens through the Catholic Church’s parish system regarding what City Hall is asking all citizens to do.

In the 15 days since Luigi de Magistris has appointed his city government, Naples is well on the way to collecting remaining garbage on the streets, placing garbage in temporary transition sites. As of this morning, Naples has reduced garbage sitting on the ground from 2,500 tons to approximately 1,300, with the center of the city basically clean, while several neighborhoods in the periphery are still in critical condition and should be tackled over the next couple of days. Naples produces approximately 1250 tons per day.  The independent suburban towns of Pozzuoli, Quarto, and Giugliano are still submerged with garbage, and they were hoping that the governmental decree would also provide them with relief.  They are now looking for help from the Provincial Government president, Luigi Cesaro, who is a member of Belursconi’s political party, and from the governor of the Campania Region, Caldoro.

In Naples, the city-owned garbage collection company, Asia, is playing a major role in turning the situation around.  The mayor hired on 16 June 2011 a new president for the company, Raphael Rossi, a 35 year old expert in waste collection, processing, and recycling, who earned notoriety last year for refusing a very high bribe in Turin when he had opposed the purchase of useless waste processing equipment with tax payer’s money.  Rossi’s exemplary behavior led to the arrest of those involved in the scam.  The mayor has also has placed all garbage collection workers on 24-hour shifts and he has decided to recapitalize Asia with 43 million euro.  The influx of capital will be essential for ensuring that suppliers are paid and that the new door-to-door collection system will be in place in September for an additional 200 thousand citizens.  Currently, 146 thousand Neapolitans are served with door-to-door waste collection, and their neighborhoods have not suffered during the current garbage crises.

Mayor de Magistris, deputy mayor, Tommaso Sodano, Asia president Rossi, and Raffaele del Giudice, a very well known ecologist who currently serves as counselor with Asia, are constantly in the streets speaking with citizens and encouraging Asia workers in meeting objectives.  The mayor’s personal visit to one of the garbage truck dispatch centers at 6 a.m. on 28 June 2011 paid off with a renewed sense of direction and commitment on the part of the workers.  Del Giudice noted that the waste collection employees are working beyond the call of duty.  In several neighborhoods, citizens who are appreciating the new spirit displayed by the Asia workers have independently formed groups to assist the garbage collection workers with loading trucks with large size items.  In several parts of town, long lines have formed to dump recyclable items in the mobile ecological centers that have been dispatched throughout the city in those neighborhoods that are not yet covered by the door-to-door garbage collection system.

Mayor de Magistris and Governor Caldoro are in touch with six Regions that have expressed an interest in importing garbage from the Campania Region.  If agreements are made quickly, Naples and Campania will be able to implement garbage separation processes without needing to be concerned about mountains of garbage sitting on the streets in the heat of the summer.  If the agreements fail, or if the Northern League and organized crime are able to put up additional roadblocks, Naples and Campania will spend one of the worst summers in their history.

Citizens protest placing Italian flag on garbage in Naples (Ansa photo, "Il Mattino", 21 June 2011)

Anthony M. Quattrone

The Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, is continuing his uphill battle to rid the city of thousands of tons of garbage sitting on the streets and producing an unbearable smell.  There are two major obstacles on his path.  The first is the opposition by the Northern League members of the Italian central government headed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to allow Naples and the Campania Region to transfer garbage to waste processing plants in other Regions willing to receive the trash.  The second obstacle, which is less visible but equally disruptive, is the apparent hold that organized crime appears to have on waste removal and processing operations in Campania.

Berlusconi’s government was expected to issue an executive order on 1 June 2011 providing relief to Naples and the Campania Region on the garbage front.  Opposition by four Northern League ministers, Umberto Bossi, Roberto Maroni, Roberto Calderoli, and Luca Zaia, has blocked the government from taking any action to face the emergency in Naples. This has caused significant backlash within Berlusconi’s party, where southern deputies and senators are distancing themselves from the government in Rome.  On 20 June 2011, the governor of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, who was elected with the decisive support of Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition last year, told “La Repubblica” that he was tired of the constant blackmail put up by the Northern League.  Other center-right coalition members were forced to take a stand condemning the anti-southern rhetoric coming from the North.

During the weekend, when the Northern League held its annual meet in Pontida (Bergamo), party leaders and ministers currently serving in Berlusconi’s government shouted slogans, such as “Free Padania” and “Independent Padania”, and in several cases chanted “secession” with the crowd.  The Northern League is also pressing to move several ministries from Rome to cities in the north, in an attempt to break the “Rome-centric” state, possibly triggering a quicker move towards the type of federalism that the Northern League has been hoping for.  The existence and viability of Silvio Berlusconi government is hinged on the vital support provided by the Northern League in Parliament.

While Berlusconi attempts to resolve conflict within his own government, the mayor of Naples is facing the internal battle with what seems to be a strong grip that organized crime appears to have on the waste collection and processing system.  Over the past couple of days, every time that the mayor appeared to be in control of the waste collection system, a new roadblock would come into play, ranging from someone instigating crowds to burn garbage or to dup trash in the middle of the street, to contracted companies keeping their trucks idle in garages.  When the president of the Province of Naples, Luigi Cesaro, also a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s political party, finally identified waste collection sites for temporary layover, the mayors of the towns hosting them issued ordinances blocking garbage trucks from hauling waste, while demonstrators, in the time being, put several garbage trucks on fire.

On 20 June 2011, the mayor of Naples, the president of the Region, the president of the Province met with the Prefect of Naples, who represents the central government, to work out a solution, albeit another temporary one. Today, a local agreement, brokered by the president of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, has allowed that five Campania provinces (Avellino, Benevento, Caserta, Naples, and Salerno) make their temporary layover sites available for garbage sitting on the streets of Naples and its suburbs.  This should provide immediate relief to Naples, while the new mayor gets on with his plan to increase garbage separation and modernizing the waste collection system.  As this new attempt to resolve the crisis moves along, Mayor de Magistris has warned that it is imperative to keep watch on organized crime and on all of those who wish to stop the winds of change from sweeping Naples clean.

Anthony M. Quattrone

Via Speranzella in downtown Naples loaded with garbage (photo Siano, "La Repubblica")

The new mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, and the President of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, will be going to Brussels on 22 June 2011 to discuss the Campania waste management issue with the European Union, hoping to unfreeze 150 million euro that Europe had earmarked for investments in Naples and Campania.  The funds, which, according to news reports, were blocked by European officials mainly due to lack of trust and confidence in local administrators from Naples and Campania, are desperately needed to fund stalled projects aiming at re-launching the economy in the city and the Region.  Caldoro, who was elected last year, and de Magistris, who was elected only three weeks ago, are hoping that European officials will provide them with a chance to prove that they deserve the trust and confidence of the European Union.

Luigi de Magistris appointed the new Naples city government on 13 June 2011. He nominated twelve officials to form the executive branch of the Naples city government.  Each official is responsible for several departments apiece.  One of the twelve officials, Tommaso Sodano, will also serve as deputy mayor, in addition to occupying the critical seat in charge of waste management.   The mayor can count on a solid majority of 34 of the 48 members of the City Council, the legislative body.  Twenty nine councilpersons come from the parties and groups forming his initial coalition in the two-round election system, while an additional five belong to formations that have supported him in the run-off election on 30 and 31 May 2011.

The president of the new City Council is professor Raimondo Pasquino, the Chancellor of the University of Salerno, who was elected with 38 votes coming from the parties supporting the new Mayor and from centrist formations that supported the chancellor’s bid to become mayor of Naples in the recently held elections.  Professor Pasquino lost in the first round of the mayoral elections, gaining almost ten percent of the vote.  Mayor de Magistris, who admires Pasquino very much, asked him to lead City Council, hoping to forge a strong alliance between the city government and the Council, in the interest of the Naples.  This is the first time since 1993 that the coalition winning the elections does not take over the leadership of the City Council.

The first decision by the new city government has been to tackle the failed waste management system that has brought Naples to the center of world attention on many occasions since the mid-1990s with pictures of high rising mounds of trash on the streets and news regarding collusion between oranized crime, politicians, and public officials.  While the city’s priority is to immediately remove the 2,000 metric tons of garbage piled up in many parts of the city, the first executive order targets a permanent solution, in line with campaign promises.  The city is immediately increasing the door-to-door waste collection system adding five areas to the eight currently served, raising the participating population from 146 to 325 thousand by the end of September. The areas served by the door-to-door waste collections system are not experiencing the problems seen in other parts of the city, where high mounds of garbage bags are piling up to record levels.

Removing 2,000 tons of garbage will take approximately five days according to the Mayor, if a place to dump the collected waste is found.  He and the president of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, were counting on an urgent decree by Silvio Berlusconi’s government allowing Naples and the Campania Region to export trash to other Italian Regions willing to help.  Regrettably, internal strife between Berlusconi’s party, the People of Liberty (PdL) and the Northern League stalled the decision until sometime next week, with the former attempting to throw roadblocks of all types to avoid that waste from Campania be exported to other regions.  The inaction on the part of Berlusconi’s government has caused serious embarrassment to the party’s local leadership, to include President Caldoro.

The waste management system in Italy is shared between four levels of government.  City hall is responsible only for collecting and transporting waste.  The Provincial government is responsible for the processing, recycling, and disposal of waste.  The Regional government is responsible for medical waste disposal, for the movement of waste across its borders, and for ensuring that there is an integrated waste management system within its jurisdiction.  The national government is to ensure general oversight over Regional management plans, and to intervene to guarantee cooperation among local institutions, thus ensuring maximum integration of services in line with European Union standards and guidelines.

The mayor of Naples is tackling the waste management problem at source.  Without properly differentiating between the types of waste produced, thus separating recyclables from other types of waste, and enforcing a door-to-door system, Naples will continue to lag behind all other major cities in the world.  The Provincial government and the Campania Region have done almost nothing in the past year in terms of identifying new landfills or building processing plants, but they blame the former Mayor, Rosa Russo Iervolino, for having done too little to implement a modern trash separation system to raise the level of recycling.  The former mayor, on the other hand, blamed the central and regional governments for not having provided necessary funds and assistance for improving recycling in Naples.  The new mayor, Luigi de Magistris, is fighting hard to obtain 8.25 million euro from the Campania Region for funding the door-to-door collection system, and, according to news reports, it appears that the president of the Region, Stefano Caldoro, might release the funds next week.

CLEANAP and Friarielli Ribelli volunteers in Piazza Bellini, Naples, on 11 June 2011 (Photo by Maurizio Pannico)

Citizens are on the move

Anthony M. Quattrone

The election of Luigi de Magistris as new mayor of Naples on 31 May 2011 might be having an interesting effect on the participation of Neapolitans in improving their city through a bottom-up approach. Citizens appear to be on the move on several fronts. The Mayor had promised during the election campaign that he would have paid special attention to the points of view expressed by committees and movements, with the purpose of ensuring a higher level of democratic participation in the management of the city. Several committees and movements have taken the Mayor at his word and they have already engaged him through discussions and initiatives on the ground, not even leaving him time to complete the formation of his new city government, which will be announced on 13 June 2011.

A group of fifty citizens led by Rino De Martino, who manages the Treves International bookstore, cleaned up the portico in Piazza del Plebiscito (known as Largo di Palazzo prior to the invasion of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1860), cutting grass and picking up garbage under the colonnade of the San Francesco di Paola Basilica on 4 June 2011. A week later other citizens, led by a Facebook group called CLEANAP, (the group’s name comes from combining the English verb “to clean” with “Naples”, to form CLEANAP, which is pronounced like the English “clean up”) worked on Piazza Bellini, bringing it back to a spick-and-span condition, while a second group Friarielli Ribelli (“friarielli” refers to a local type of broccoli and “ribelli” means “rebels”) performed “guerilla gardening“, cutting weeds, taking care of the gardens, and planting flowers and plants in the same piazza.

Citizens are also on the move trying to get the city to put back into use equipment sitting in warehouses or simply made “inactive” through the lack of attention by city administrators and lazy citizens. Angelo Forgione of the V.A.N.T.O. movement (the acronym plays on the Italian word “pride”) is attempting to get the attention of the Mayor and city officials regarding a giant movie screen in Piazza del Plebiscito, whose existence is regularly forgotten every summer. The screen, which is placed underneath the pavement between two famous equestrian statues with the Bourbon kings of Naples, Charles III and Ferdinand IV, can be electronically raised and used for open air movies during the summer. Forgione claims that with a very small investment, the system can be brought back to life.

On the security front, citizens have been on the move giving examples that something is changing both in terms of breaking a code of silence that has too often allowed organized and petty crime to gain the upper hand, and in terms of demonstrating that the city is fundamentally inhabited by honest citizens. Since the election of the new Mayor, several criminals have been caught within a matter of hours after committing robberies against tourists or merchants. On 2 June 2011, a couple of thieves stole clothes in the fashionable Barbaro boutique in the central Galleria Umberto, injuring a shopkeeper. Six days later they were arrested. On 5 June 2011, several hours after that two British tourists were robbed near the Cathedral (il Duomo), the Carabinieri were able to identify and arrest the alleged criminal. On 8 June 2011, two criminals were arrested several hours after robbing an American woman, member of the military, in the Capodichino airport area.

On two different occasions during the last ten days, tourists have been pleasantly surprised that honest Neapolitans have returned valuables that they had misplaced or lost. In one case, a tourist from Florence lost, in the Port area, her wallet with over 500 Euros and credit cards and in another an Italian who lives abroad left his personal computer in a taxi cab. In both cases, all valuables were returned to the happy owners.

The death of American tourist Antonio Oscar Mendoza, who died on 27 May 2011, nine days after that two criminals injured him when snatching his Rolex in the Port area, has led many Neapolitans to become more sensitive to the damage done to the image of the city by organized and petty crime. The two alleged criminals accused of having caused the death of the American tourist have been arrested on 31 May 2011. The new Mayor, in a meeting with the American Consul General, Donald Moore, expressed his condolences for the death of the American tourist and discussed with the American official his ideas for making Naples a more secure place for citizens and visitors alike. Neapolitans have reacted to Mendoza’s death in different ways, to include the official request to the Mayor to name a street in the Port area in the honor of the slain tourist.

Now it is up to Luigi de Magistris, the new mayor, to keep up the momentum and to start implementing real change. Tomorrow he will announce his new city government.

Guerilla Gardening in Piazza Bellini – photographs from “La Repubblica”

CLEANAP photos on Facebook (must have a Facebook account)

Mayor of Naples, Luigi De Magistris (L), shakes hands with US Vice President Joe Biden during the visit to Capodichino U.S. Navy Base in Naples, Italy, on 04 June 2011. On Right President of Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro. (Photo SkyTg24)

The newly elected mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, has invited President Barack Obama to visit Naples.  The Mayor, who is a staunch supporter of the American president, is hopeful that a visit by Obama could be used as a milestone for the rebirth of the city, which has been plagued by waste disposal problems, violent and petty crime against citizens and tourists, and collusion between organized crime and politicians.
During the visit by American Vice President, Joe Biden, to the US Naval Support Activity in Naples, Mayor de Magistris formalized his invitation to President Obama.  The Mayor stated that “I will work very hard for this event to take place – it is not an improvised matter, but something in which I firmly believe.  I believe that there are all the conditions for the visit to take place, but the timing needs to be verified.  I am an Obama supporter and I know that the States are very careful regarding the movement that has been created around my person.  There are analogies with what happened with Obama”.

The Neapolitan daily “Il Mattino” reported on 5 June 2011, that there will be a meeting next week between the Mayor and the American Consul General, Donald Moore.  According to the paper, the Consul stated that “we need to re-launch tourism, discuss the relationship between Naples and the United States, the relationship with the Neapolitan citizens who live in the United States, and the necessary commitment regarding security in light of what has happened very recently”.  The Consul was obviously referring to the violent death of an American tourist who died as a consequence of injuries received when robbers stole his Rolex watch downtown.

The President of the Campania Region, Stefano Caldoro, also supports the idea of inviting President Obama. “Il Mattino” reports that discussions have already taken place with the Italian President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, and with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  The objective would appear to be to create and international event or an Italy-USA bilateral meeting in Naples which would allow the city to benefit from major influx of public funds which could serve to bring it up to speed. Commentators are looking at the positive effect that the G7 had on the city in 1994, when President Bill Clinton and other international leaders were hosted by the city.  At that time, during Antonio Bassolino’s first term in office as mayor, the city underwent major refurbishing and restyling, leading many to label the period as a new Neapolitan renaissance.

While discussions proceed on getting Obama to visit the city, Luigi de Magistris is working on nominating his new city government.  His objective is to announce the names of the twelve department heads on 13 June 2011 .  Observers believe that the new government will include many technicians, a high number of women, relatively young persons, and it will be non-ideological. De Magistris will be relatively free from the influence of major political parties because he won defeating the candidates put forward by Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right and Pier Luigi Bersani’s center-left.   His most daunting task is to rid the city of tons of garbage before the high heat of the summer leads the disposal problem to become a major sanitary issue.

More photos from SkyTg24 of Vice President Joe Biden with US troops and with the Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris

More photos from “La Repubblica” of Vice President Joe Biden with US troops and with the Mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris