Miscellanea - Rubrica d'attualita`

Franco Giannotti and Antonino Lombardo are elected to a 5-year term in the new COMITES for the Chicago based 11-state consulate district, commanding very respectable 3rd and 4th places within winning List #1, Comitato Tricolore per gli Italiani nel Mondo.

Two other lists competed with CTIM for a total of 40 candidates, only 12 of which were elected. St. Louis will be the only Midwest city outside of the Chicago area to be represented in this revamped Italian government agency, organized to represent the Italian citizens living in the United States to Italian consulate and regional/local authorities.

Concluding months of preparations, the worldwide elections for the new COMITES drew to a close Friday, March 26, 2004, when consulate offices around the world remained open until midnight to allow last minute voters to carry in their ballots personally. Around the clock scrutiny of the ballots ensued during Saturday and Sunday, and saw an overwhelming victory for List #1, with 57% of the votes, versus List #2 with 33% and List #3 with 10% of the votes.

The process was earlier marred by controversy about the eligibility of candidates and confusion about the implementation of the new law. To make matter worse, it became obvious that not much progress took place in updating and coordinating the vital statistic data of consulates and Italian towns of origin since last year’s referendum, which had marked the very first effort of a worldwide vote by correspondence. Discrepancies in the databases and the mandate to give preference to the list of eligible voters originated by the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs, rather than to those maintained by the consulates, caused many otherwise eligible voters not to be listed and therefore not to receive their ballots.

Antonino Lombardo and I comprised the St. Louis team and we faced nearly impossible odds considering that of the ballots mailed by the consulate office to the some 17,000 eligible voters in the 11-state consular jurisdiction, in excess of 13,000 went to voters in the state of Illinois (mostly Chicago) and less than 700 came to Missouri, including the Kansas City area. The remaining ballots were distributed among the other 9 states that make up our consular jurisdiction.

In addition to good exposure in St. Louis’ newspaper “Il Pensiero”, we made good use of the internet, thanks to the “www.italystl.com” portal and the “www.comites.org” web sites, as well as extensive use of e-mail resources, and we were able to engage voters in the 9 “minority” states. A general mailing to the same outlying areas of a descriptive flyer about the election and the issues at stake contributed added exposure to our candidacy. This was probably the first such attempt to get the long forgotten more distant voters involved in what in the past had been considered strictly a Chicago event. Obviously it paid off.

In St. Louis, we had been busy campaigning around town and we would like to thank all of the Italian organizations that allowed us time to speak at their functions, and would also like to thank Joseph Colagiovanni, Honorary Vice Consul and president of FIAO (the Federation of Italian American Organizations) for urging them to give us the opportunity.

Italiano per piacere, the Italian Club of St. Louis, UNICO National, Fratellanza Society and the Sicilian Cultural Association were very gracious in giving us time to talk to their membership. We used that forum to explain the intricacies of the confusing voting process to help ensure that our community's votes would be valid and our voices would be heard. We also used the time to explain the need to have representation from the St. Louis area on this region's COMITES. We explained how having St. Louisans on the COMITES would help bring programs and Italian government funding here instead of just going to Chicago as it has in the past.

Only one of our organizations decided that St. Louis' interests would be better served by not having any local representation on the COMITES and actually gave press time to one of the rival Chicago candidates instead. We would like to assure the membership of that and all other organizations that we will represent you and fight for your rights just as we will represent and fight for the rights of all Italians in the St. Louis area.

In return we hope to continue enjoying your support because the only way we can accomplish anything of substance for our community is to be united. We have a lot to gain by banding together and all to lose by perpetuating old sectionalist and protectionist ideas. We plan to keep you abreast of our progress with regular articles in this newspaper and on the internet portal www.italystl.com. We hope to be invited to your clubs’ board or membership meetings again to learn directly from you and your leaders what you think our priorities should be.

We also would like to thank the Hill businesses who agreed to display the COMITES flyers, particularly the John Volpi Co., DeGregorio Italian Foods, Viviano, Girasole Gifts, Marconi Bakery, Gian Tony Restaurant and Da Baldo’s Trattoria.

Finally, we are extremely grateful and we want to thank all of you who have taken the time to learn about, to educate others, and finally to vote in the COMITES elections, particularly those of you who voted for our List and for us. Without your vote St. Louis would have had no representation in Chicago. We are pleased and honored and we will strive to continue earning the trust you have shown in us.

Franco Giannotti