Add the Gazzetta del Sud as a source
The start-of-term report exists, it is public and can be consulted by councilors and citizens. And, according to the president of the municipal council Massimiliano Minutoli, there is no obligation to convene a session of the Chamber for the mayor to illustrate and discuss.
This is the point at the center of the response to the declarations circulated in the last few hours regarding the failure to convene a council meeting dedicated to the document. President Minutoli intervenes to reject the hypothesis of a U-turn or, worse, an attempt to avoid political confrontation. The start of mandate report, he explains, is a requirement required by law and serves to photograph the financial and administrative situation of the organization at the start of the new mandate. But the law does not establish that it must necessarily be brought to the Chamber by the mayor for a council discussion.
However, the case of the annual reports on the state of implementation of the program is different. In that case the legislation expressly provides for the involvement of the City Council and the discussion in the Chamber. Hence the president’s position: «There is no attempt to avoid the discussion, nor any “backtrack” or desire to hide documents and documents».
The issue, therefore, is brought back to the competences of the assembly and to the procedures established by law and regulations. The City Council, underlines the president, must exercise its prerogatives in compliance with the rules, while whoever presides over the Chamber has the task of verifying and processing requests according to the established procedures. The document, moreover, is public and knowable. And if the political forces want to open a discussion on its contents, no one, the president claims, is preventing the political and institutional discussion. Another thing – according to Minutoli – is to argue that there is an obligation for the mayor to appear in the Chamber to report on the report.
“It is precisely out of respect for the institutions that we cannot transform a regulatory provision into an obligation that the law does not contemplate”, is the position reiterated. The reply ends with a message aimed at both the majority and the opposition: the City Council will continue to guarantee transparency and discussion, ensuring councilors the full exercise of their prerogatives.
“Therefore, no fear of confrontation”, concludes the president. “Simply, the institutional discussion must take place in the forms and times required by law and regulation.”