After the declaration of bankruptcy voted by the Council, it is the Democratic Party, through its own group leader David Bongiovanni, who was the first to launch what appears to be a broad-based government proposal. An idea that aims to involve all the positive energies of the city, overcoming atavistic political-electoral conflicts, to bring the Municipality back out of the ford. The essential point of this unprecedented path is, according to Bongiovanni, the break with the recent past and the immediate return to the polls, in order to present to the citizens a new and unprecedented project of those political forces that will demonstrate the will to establish a good government .
The new perspectives emerge from the declaration of Bongiovanni who – after having said days ago that «the declaration of bankruptcy represents the certification of the failure of the administrative project of the Calabrò union» – yesterday he spoke of a “delicate phase” and a “new season”. So a key passage: «Aside from the political responsibilities that led to the economic and financial failure of the Municipality, we must now acknowledge that what is opening up for the city is a delicate phase, in which political clashes like those cannot find space of recent times. Citizens, who have already been living in a condition of absolute hardship for over 5 years, without worthy services and with taxes and tariffs at the highest levels, will in fact have to endure an even worse state of affairs for the next 5 years. And for this reason – Bongiovanni goes on – we cannot risk missing the goal of recovery and returning, in 5 years, to the same condition. A new season is essential, giving the floor back to the voters and trying, if possible, to aggregate, overcoming divisions and conflicts of the past, as many energies as possible in the only project that the city needs today: the exit from the tunnel of instability, to lower the tax burden and go back to planning for the future, between services and infrastructures”.
We will now have to see if there will be reactions from political movements and formations, in addition to the proposals that could come from associations, for the formation of political groups capable of allying with those who attempt the path of an alternative coalition to the current one. Meanwhile, the former Finance Councilor Dario Paterniti, in office for the first 5 months of the Council, intervenes in relation to “quoted statements by Mayor Calabrò on the issue of the bankruptcy declared by the Council, which, if true, would be detrimental to my professionalism. They deeply disturbed my sensibilities. I am referring – continues Paterniti – to the unworthy political buck-passing where it is asserted that «with hindsight he would have opted for immediate bankruptcy after his election, recognizing the mistake of having listened to the former councilor Dario Paterniti and the indications of the group politician from Forza Italia led by the Hon. Cauldron”. Well – the former councilor continues – Calabrò is not telling the truth politically. He, and those who followed him on this wicked political reasoning, hide in hypocrisy. Many mistakes have been made by the current new majority, primarily due to the inability of my former lawyer friend Calabrò and the bureaucratic machine which he has failed to make efficient in 3 years; Furthermore, linking the disruption to the dated remodulation of the 2020-2021 rebalancing plan proposed by the undersigned in the short period (5 months) in which I held the position of councilor is, as well as being ungenerous, false and misleading public opinion. I can state that, while in the months in which I worked (some in the midst of Covid) my presence was assiduous, including directives and proposals from the council, – states Paterniti – I cannot say the same of the lawyer Calabrò, often busy outside the Palace. I do not deny my experience as a councilor and technician which, although brief, allowed me to achieve results, political satisfaction and first-rate human and professional relationships. I also remember that Calabrò took over from the undersigned in March 2021, keeping the budget delegation for himself, I delivered the approved current final balance and budget to him and a remodulated plan that was implementable, tangible and verifiable, a month in advance, as I had was asked during the election campaign. The rest is just a clumsy attempt to escape political responsibilities, certainly not attributable to me who, in the fight against tax evasion, also received death threats in Barcelona and, who for some time due to other tasks no longer frequents the rooms of Palazzo Longano…”