Everything as expected: a river session of the city council (seven hours) with some more heated interventions than others and in the end the 2026-28 budget was approved with 16 votes in favour, 7 against (the opposition) and 1 abstention (Giancarlo Nicotera). Having passed the scrutiny of the municipal assembly, therefore, the accounting document or rather forecast and political direction for the next three years (with a weight of 262,094,070.29 euros for 2026, 224,157,482.66 for 2027 and 133,447,893.39 for 2028), as well as the Single Programming Document, the real estate disposals and valorisations and the three-year plan for public works. Among the most critical (and longest) interventions, meanwhile, was that of Gennarino Masi (Pd) who spoke of a «house of cards built on the fragile foundations of a crisis that has never been resolved, an act that risks bringing this institution into financial ruin» and then directly asked for the withdrawal of the proposal. The only discussion between the DUP and the budget, in reality, in which Mayor Murone reiterated the long-term objective: “bringing the city out of the shallows”. For the mayor, the budget operation is aimed first and foremost “at consolidating the organisation. It is partly true that you cannot read the hand of politics, but the accounts are what they are, and the first thing a responsible administration must do is move forward anyway, even without a councilor for the budget or public works.
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