The word to the judges. The Regional Administrative Court will today examine the request to suspend the consultative referendum on the Single Cityadvanced by the Rendese committee for the “No”. The popular consultation has been set by the president of the regional council, Roberto Occhiuto, for Sunday 1st December (you can vote from 8am to 10pm). The citizens of Cosenza, Rende and Castrolibero are called to the polls, i.e. the three municipalities included in the merger project.
The Rendese Committee, made up of various cultural and political associations, former local, provincial and regional administrators, contests the law with which the Council of Palazzo Campanella intended to regulate the birth of the single municipality, skipping the deliberations of the municipal councils and foreseeing a referendum consultative and therefore destined not to produce legal effects.
The regional councilors who originally promoted the initiative, a Committee created in favor of the merger and the President of the Calabrian council appeared in court. Supporters of the merger maintain that the Constitution delegates to the regional councils the power to decide on the unification of the Municipalities after consulting the populations involved. This last step would be ensured by the referendum appointment.
The Five Star Movement and the regional coordinator Anna Laura Orrico, the Rendese Spontaneous Committee, the mayor of the Bruzio capital, Franz Caruso and his council are aligned against the single city in this form, contesting the referendum and the exclusion of the municipal assemblies from the phase decision-making and city councilors and representatives of the Democratic Party of the Cosenza circle. With them the municipal administration of Castrolibero.
The provincial and regional Dem secretariat is in favour, with Vittorio Pecoraro and Nicola Irto, the regional councilors Mimmo Bevacqua and Franco Iacucci, promoters of the resolution voted almost unanimously by the members of the Calabrian legislative assembly on 26 July and all the exponents of the centre-right who make up the governing majority of the Region, to which are added the minority councilors of Palazzo dei Bruzi.
Today the hearing at the TAR which could however be interlocutory given that the additional reasons linked to the formal calling of the referendum decided by Occhiuto after the presentation of the appeal will have to be considered. Not only that: in the meantime, the appeals formulated by the Municipality of Cosenza and that of Castrolibero have been presented. It is therefore probable that the decision on the request for suspension will be postponed until next November. A month that would therefore prove decisive in terms of the birth of the single city.