Page 3 - Italian-American Herald - July 2023

ITALIAN-AMERICAN HERALD
IN MEMORIAM
Biondi: Writer of Delaware’s banking laws dies at 90 Continued from front page
History............................................... 4-6 In Memoriam ..................................... 8-9 Achiever .............................................. 10 Health and Wellness ............................ 12 Festivals ......................................... 13-15 Wine....................................................16 Dining In and Out................................. 18 It’s All Good.........................................20 Honors.................................................22 Obituary ..............................................23 News From Italy ..................................25 Pagina Italiana.....................................27 Per I Bambini.......................................29 Language ............................................30 Arts and Entertainment Calendar.........31
Act, legislation that ultimately brought about 35 credit-card banks to the state, creating an estimated 40,000 new jobs in the process. Credit-card banking became Delaware’s largest single economic force, a goose that laid golden egg after golden egg.
“He was able to enjoy the trust of and earn the ear of governors who were Democrats and those who were Republicans,” said Sen. Thomas R. Carper, Delaware’s governor from 1993 to 2001. “Members of about 40,000 families have jobs in the banking industry. That wouldn’t be the case without Frank Biondi.”
“No lawyer I know was ever as prepared as Frank Biondi,” said David S. Swayze, former Wilmington city solicitor and chief
of staff to the late Gov. Pierre S. du Pont IV. “Frank could be intimidating. I could see the fear people had of crossing him, but I never saw him threaten anybody. Just the inflection of his voice could convey that message. It made him larger than life and gave him an outsized sense of power.”
Setting the stage for enactment of the Financial Center Development Act was Biondi’s work for Gov. Sherman W. Tribbitt from 1973 to 1977 and then for du Pont from 1977 to 1985.
After demonstrating his political chops and legislative acumen in Wilmington’s
City Hall, Tribbitt recruited Biondi to serve
as co-leader of his transition team. Once Tribbitt took office, most of Biondi’s work was accomplished in the background, save for
his service as vice chairman of the Delaware Agency to Reduce Crime, an organization responsible for building partnerships between prosecutors and police agencies as well as securing and disbursing federal funds for criminal justice programs.
Biondi might not have invented the “Delaware Way,” the unique custom of sitting government, business and nonprofit leaders with diverse views around a table and somehow arriving at solutions to the state’s thorniest issues, but he was instrumental in its creation and served as its personification for decades.
In “Andiamo!”, his recently published memoir, Biondi explained how he offered Tribbitt a solution to reconciling differences
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Frank Biondi personified the “Delaware Way” of business and politics for decades.
PHOTOS BY DICK DUBROFF / FINAL FOCUS PHOTOGRAPHY, COURTESY OF THE DELAWARE STATE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
between environmentalists and the business community following the passage of the controversial Coastal Zone Act in 1971.
“I told Tribbitt that I’m young [he was 40 at the time] but I’ve had a little experience in Wilmington, and I’ve learned that if you put people together in a committee setting, in the same place, they’ll all try to make sense. There’s something about putting people together and just talking,” he said.
That conversation led to the establishment
of the Delaware Tomorrow Commission, charged with creating a statewide plan for growth. Its roster of 31 members read like a Who’s Who of Delaware – legislators, cabinet secretaries, city and county officials, labor and business leaders and representatives of groups like the League of Women Voters. And Tribbitt named Biondi as its chair.
The commission’s report in 1976
See BIONDI - page 8
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Vol. 10 No. 7 – July 2023
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Contents
Biondi’s most significant achievement was writing and smoothing the path to passage of the 1981 Financial Center Development Act, legislation that ultimately brought about 35 credit-card banks to the state.
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