Gsp, the battle of Omar Monestier: alongside citizens to say no to the water tax

From Belluno, Omar Monestier had directed the Corriere delle Alpi for six months. In November 2011 the investigation into the millionaire hole of the water company. On Thursday the funeral in Belluno

BELLUNO. The world of newspapers, radios and televisions in Belluno under shock due to the death of Omar Monestier. “Our little big world” as Tiziana Bolognani calls it, journalist now of Antenna 3 and before of Telebelluno and of radio Longarone and Valbelluna.

“We took our first steps in journalism together,” he recalls, “in the mid-1980s. We teamed up at Radio Valbelluna where we had obtained a training contract as sound technicians. One was on the air from 6.30 in the morning until 15, alternating press reviews with radio news and music. And the other took over from the afternoon until the evening. But Omar wanted to do something else and he moved around introducing himself to the Gazzettino ».

In the radio Monestier he met his future wife Sara Casol, who collaborated with radio Longarone and radio Valbelluna and was a face of Telebelluno. The work in the newspapers therefore begins with the Gazzettino. Renato Bona, then head of the editorial office of Belluno, took him to the newspaper as a collaborator from Limana. A young aspiring journalist had introduced himself bringing, as he used then, an example of his abilities. “First he worked as a collaborator at Limana, then he dealt with events in Belluno and started working in the editorial office,” Bona remembers.

At the end of the 1980s, a new publisher, Longarini, appeared on the Belluno journalistic scene and wanted to open one of its many local newspapers scattered mainly in central Italy. This is how the Gazzetta delle Dolomiti was born on April 18, 1990, with the editorial office in Piazza Martiri above Caffè Deon. Monestier is among the first to be hired, reported by Maria Zampieri, also a collaborator at the Gazzettino, who then moved on to the new newspaper. “I vouched for him, I said he was a good guy, that he wanted to do it,” says Zampieri.

Monestier deals with crime news and city life that he knows well. He remained at the Gazzetta until he became a professional, in 1992. Then he began his journey in the newspapers of the Northeast which led him first to the breaking latest news of Verona, directed by Paolo Pagliaro, then to Mattino dell’Alto Adige, then to Alto Adige. , thus entering the newspapers of the Finegil – La Repubblica group (now Gedi), always with the roles of deputy or director.

He returns to deal directly with Belluno twenty years later, in the autumn of 2011 when the Corriere delle Alpi, born in 1994, passes from the Alto Adige – Seta group to the Finegil newspapers of Veneto, led by Il Mattino di Padova, of which Monestier at that time he is director.

He runs the Corriere delle Alpi for only six months but leaves an important mark. These are the months of the Bim Gsp scandal and the discovery of the hole of tens of millions of euros in the water society. Among his harsh articles and inquiries on the subject, there is also a particular initiative, the diffusion with the newspaper of stickers with the slogan “No to the tax on water”, against the hypothesis of making the Belluno people pay that budget in red, very angry about what was happening.

Monestier was a true workaholic at work. Already inand early in the day he knew perfectly well what had been written by the competitors and what was missing in his newspaper. They are the famous “holes”, the greatest fear of every journalist. And he certainly wasn’t waiting for the 11 o’clock meeting to make them remark. Thus began the early morning phone call, that of the “cazziatone”, made to whoever was in charge of the newspaper and then to the individual journalist, guilty of not “being on the spot”.

But he was also a director ready to support his journalists in the face of power, the political one as well as the economic one, which as a rule is always ready to complain or protest. Being able to say “call Monestier if you have something to object” made you work more relaxed. He liked very much to direct the newspaper of his city, Belluno, where he knew everyone, the vices and virtues of politicians and administrators and where he returned frequently for family ties.

His career, after the Corriere delle Alpi, continued as director of the Messaggero Veneto of Udine, later of the Tyrrhenian of Livorno, then again of the Messaggero Veneto and Piccolo of Trieste. A great professional life that started decades ago from Belluno. On Sunday afternoon Francesco Chiamulera spoke to him on the phone who had him among the moderators of “A Mountain of Books”, the cultural review of Cortina: Monestier was to present Mauro Corona at the Alexander Girardi Hall on 7 August and he had talked with the inventor of the review to define the last details of the meeting.

«He was one of the first moderators of A Mountain of Books, ”says Chiamulera. “I hadn’t seen him for a few years and this year I had thought of inviting him for an evening with Corona, an invitation that he had readily accepted.”

THE FUNERAL. The last farewell to Omar will be held on Thursday 4 August at 3 pm in the Duomo in Belluno