In the morning the announcement that the 2025 panettone will be the last panettone for the leadership of the Partecipata, in the afternoon a curtain call that has been causing laughter in the city and beyond for three days.
A Christmas Eve with different “ideas” at the ASM of Taormina, with the mayor Cateno De Luca and the president Giuseppe Campagna as protagonists. Meeting managers and employees of the Municipality, the mayor made it clear that in 2026 the president could make room for others: «In recent years ASM has been able to perfectly interpret the extra gear that our municipal administration wanted to give – he said – for me a first phase has been closed which will legally end in 2026 with the transformation of the special company into a joint-stock company. The political responsibility of having formed the team is always mine – he then added, speaking of tasks and roles entrusted in various fields – I put my face to it and I must always put my face to it, even when I realize that whoever was invested in transforming a strategic objective into actions along the way was lost in the dark forest. The armchair doesn’t have the same effect on everyone, perhaps we move away from certain principles and whoever has the responsibility must intervene without looking anyone in the face: if he doesn’t do so, he commits an injustice towards those who placed their trust in me.”
A few hours later the skit on Corso Umberto, in front of the Town Hall, where Campagna with ASM operators shows the sanitization of the streets with the use of a powdered bioactivator product based on bacteria and natural enzymes, designed to treat bins and urban organic waste, which promotes the biodegradation of putrescible substances, reducing odors and pathogenic bacteria.
«A 100% biodegradable product – states the ASM president – certified by the Ministry of Health» and, immediately afterwards, he ingests the concentrated liquid. “If it doesn’t hurt, we’ll taste it, let Campagna drink what we’re spraying” adds De Luca, in front of other administrators including the Prime Minister Giuseppe Composto, a doctor by profession. So the mayor and president of ASM ingest the powdered product and drink the solution, as if it were a “shot”, evidently confusing biodegradable with edible and forgetting that it is a detergent. A little scene that sparked comments and reactions. «De Luca offers another pearl of scientific ignorance and very serious irresponsibility – intervenes Marco Rao, of the “Taormina Reconstruction Project” group – a very serious message from the mayor, local health authority and main person responsible for the protection of public health, and from the president Asm. That product contains live microorganisms that can cause gastrointestinal imbalances, infections or allergic reactions – adds Rao, addressing the citizens – do not emulate this irresponsible gesture, it is a serious message from those who should protect public health. ASM operators use the product only for its intended purposes, with personal protective equipment and absolutely without ingesting it.”
