Alessandra Siragusa discusses her time served as Palermo’s Commissioner of Education under Mayor Leoluca Orlando. She explains the Municipality’s initiatives to enhance education as part of the municipality’s mission to reopen Palermo to its citizens. She describes some of the challenges faced. Many students could not study in the morning because the system lacked classroom space. Most classrooms were rented space from private buildings, often Mafia-owned, and many citizens knew little about Palermitan culture. Dr. Siragusa explains the adopt-a-monument project, which reopened neglected monuments and educated teachers and other citizens like students and their parents about local history. She recalls Mafia resistance to school construction and the municipality’s counter-measures in an anecdote about Brancaccio, a Mafia controlled neighborhood where her administration succeeded in opening a new school. Altogether, her team built 40 new schools and organized schedules to allow all students to attend class in the morning in public or private buildings not linked to the Mafia. She explains how the government financed the schools and then names four signs of the administration’s success. She says that the successful adopt-a-monument program, a nationally recognized environmental education program, an effective cross-cultural education initiative, and the opening of the school in Brancaccio all indicated improvements in Palermitan education. Lastly, she reflects on the lack of sustainability of her reforms, blaming a conscious effort by later governments to marginalize schools.
Alessandra Siragusa served the Municipality of Palermo as commissioner of education under Mayor Leoluca Orlando from 1993 through 2000. Prior to her appointment she was active in Palermitan politics from a young age as a district and city councilor. After her term as commissioner of education she became and remains a teacher. She is currently a town councilor and member of the Committee for Culture, Science and Education.
In this interview Francesco Giambrone discusses the challenges, priorities, strategies, and results of his four years as Councilor of Culture for the Municipality of Palermo. When Mayor Leoluca Orlando, under whom Giambrone served, took office in 1992, Palermo’s cultural icons were largely closed and unknown to the citizens. Giambrone describes the Villa Trabia, Teatro Massimo, and Lo Spasimo as magnificent pieces of Palermo’s culture and history that the municipality neglected. Many Palermitans had never seen or knew nothing about the buildings despite their central location. Giambrone outlines his three interdependent priorities as councilor that aimed to restore cultural awareness and pride in the city. First, he sought to reopen closed spaces like the Villa Trabia, Teatro Massimo, and Lo Spasimo. Second, he needed to spend more money. Giambrone explains that the previous administration often spent only a fraction of the budget, but he used to the full budget to put the civil servants to work restoring cultural spaces for reopening to the public. Lastly, he pushed for a change in the mentality amongst the civil servants. He says that he tried to replace a culture of unprofessionalism and lack of dedication with a more hard-working and responsible attitude. He also describes a close relationship, marked by cooperation and agreement, amongst members of Mayor Orlando’s administration. Giambrone expresses satisfaction with the reforms in the short term. Civic awareness and pride and economic activity returned to the city while crime rates dropped. But he acknowledges that the reforms did not sustain after the departure of Orlando and his administration and speculates why. Giambrone concludes with two anecdotes about the restoration of Lo Spasimo and the reopening of the Teatro Massimo, describing them both as important moments in Palermo’s cultural reawakening.
Francesco Giambrone served the Municipality of Palermo under Mayor Leoluca Orlando as Councilor of Culture from 1995-1999. He then became the General Manager of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo for three years. From 2006 to 2010, he worked as the General Manager of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Currently, he is the President of the Conservatory of Palermo and teaches management of musical performance at the University of Palermo. Originally trained as a cardiologist, Giambrone worked as a critic, journalist, and essayist on music, dance, and culture after his medical education and before his appointment to the Palermo City Council.
In this interview, Giuseppe Ferrante reflects on his time spent serving the Municipality of Palermo from 1995-2000 under Mayor Leoluca Orlando. He begins by explaining his personal background in the private sector prior to his appointment to the city government and describing the pervasive presence of the mafia in the city government and culture prior to the transformation of the 1990s. Ferrante discusses Mayor Orlando’s strategies to change Palermo. Orlando hired honest and hard-working employees, often from outside of political circles, as in the case of Ferrante, in order to eliminate the unprofessional culture that marked past administrations. Popular faith in the government and pride in the city soon returned to Palermo. Ferrante explains how his commercial, security, and traffic initiatives contributed to a turnaround in downtown Palermo, creating a safe and lively pedestrian area full of shops, markets, restaurants, bars, and cafés. His familiarity with the private sector as an entrepreneur informed his successful business-friendly policies. He also recounts his efforts to improve Palermo’s relationships with its sister cities around the world. Then he discusses the responsibilities of and working relationships among the members of the City Council before reflecting on the time of the Orlando administration. Although he says his term brought about positive change, he expresses disappointment with the governments that followed Orlando’s team.
Giuseppe Ferrante served the Municipality of Palermo under Mayor Leoluca Orlando from March 1995 until April 2000. He worked primarily as both Commissioner of Productive Activities and of Tourism; however, his responsibilities were many and varied. He was also in charge of the municipal police department and information technology for the city administration, worked with the municipal service companies, and served more briefly as Commissioner of Traffic. Prior to his appointment to the city government, Ferrante worked exclusively in the private sector. He managed a clothing company with 200 employees and headed the Sicilian and youth chapters of the Confindustria, an Italian confederation of industrialists. In 1985, Ferrante started a Sicilian business magazine.
Leoluca Orlando recounts his anti-Mafia efforts throughout his political career, focusing especially on his terms as Mayor of Palermo (1985-1990; 1993-1997; 1997-2000). He begins by explaining the richness of Sicilian identity and the drawbacks to the deeply rooted culture of belonging. As mayor, he aimed to combat the role of the Mafia by addressing these cultural factors. His first step was revitalizing common spaces, such as reopening Palermo’s opera house. Orlando describes the delivery of social services as a second area of reform. Some neighborhoods were completely disconnected from the municipal services and government, a problem rectified through the opening of schools and other services as well as grassroots efforts to expose citizens to the potential of municipal government. In these neighborhoods and throughout the city, Orlando’s administration sought to demonstrate the benefits of a well-run government free from corruption by providing services reliably and maintaining strong commitments, such as delivering all payments within thirty days. Orlando also describes the initiatives aimed at teaching children about the role of government and police, because he believes lasting change requires a shift in mentality and culture, which can only be accomplished if children learn different lessons than their parents might demonstrate. Throughout this interview, Orlando traces his political career and descriptions of his various party alliances and coalitions. Despite his efforts to make his changes sustainable, Orlando expresses concern that his reforms depended too much on him personally.
At the time of this interview, Leoluca Orlando was a member of the Italian Parliament and Speaker of the Italy of Values party, which he co-founded. In Parliament he was on the foreign affairs commission and President of the Inquiry Commission on National Service. He also served as Vice President in Palermo Congress and as Vice-President of ELDR party (European Liberal Democratic and Reform). During his career he has been associated with several parties, including Le Rete (The Net or The Network), which he founded. He served as mayor of Palermo twice, from 1985-1990 and 1993-2000. He is well known for his anti-mafia activities as mayor, and has acted in several films about his work. Early in his career, Orlando served as a legal advisor to Sicilian President Piersanti Mattarella, whose murder in 1980 helped shape Orlando’s life and career. He graduated from University of Palermo, where he also worked as a lawyer and professor of Regional Public Law. Orlando also participates in civil society, including serving as President of the Sicilian Renaissance Institute, and has received numerous awards around the world. On May 22, 2012, Orlando took office for his third term as mayor of Palermo.