Things can change: a brief contribution to the political debate

The editorial team asked me for a intervention on the second issue of the new editorial season of Abbiabbè per make a contribution to the political debate and make an appeal to healthy forces of the city starting from the experience gained in approximately three years administration of the Municipality of Giugliano. I welcomed the invitation because I believe that only through an open discussion on the many issues in the field can we grow and encourage the training of the ruling class of our city. I hope that Abbiabbè pays more and more attention to opinion content rather than news stories.

I would like to say, first of all, that the experience administrative was a splendid opportunity for personal and political growth accompanied by great moments enthusiasm but also from days of tension; in fact I don't have the role of technician in the municipal council kept safe from criticism and political overexposure despite not have never held party membership cards or participated in anyone's life political organization.

Nonetheless I think the opportunity granted to me should be able to be offered to many other young people, in the awareness, in any case, that there are no blue cars, no secretaries, no lavish ones function allowances or other forms of personal privileges that await them. But just a lot of work to do, almost full time, in a difficult city both for the notable social tensions (high unemployment and shadow presence of organized crime) and for the continuous attacks (due to choices not only criminal but also institutional) that the territory has suffered recent years, among which the waste emergency is only the most evident but not the worst. In fact, I remind citizens of illegal construction, the Cuma purifier, illegal spills, building speculation, etc.

In the few lines that follow I have tried to summarize my experience and point out a few   suggestions. I'll express mine right away satisfaction for what we managed to do amidst a thousand obstacles because it confirms that things can always transform. The main regret, however, is linked to what we could have done in one less difficult political situation: but I am, at the same time, very confident up what we can all do together in the coming years.

It was difficult to administer, I said, for many reasons; but perhaps the main one can be traced back to the general one feeling of distrust in the institutions that the country is experiencing due to of the delicate international economic moment and, even more, of the intricacy national and regional political story, too often the protagonist of events which highlight managerial incompetence and personal interest where they should instead, good governance and collective interest prevail.

This pessimism is exacerbated, in our region, also by the presence of the waste emergency that is has become representative of the failure of a ruling class which, laboriously, had replaced, at the beginning of the nineties, an old oligarchy of administrators, it is worth remembering, who are also anything but loved by the citizens of Campania.

When even i carriers of change fail, unfortunately, it becomes easy to abandon yourself to discouragement and the thought that the future that awaits us – especially in difficult contexts like the one we live in, where the intertwining of particularism, bad politics and organized crime is a reason for social, cultural and economic immobilism – could be even worse of the years that have passed. In this context it becomes equally easy to flatten every human resource, distrust the best forces of the country and abandon oneself to new as the only alternative to the absence of prospects.

Yet, I believe, that the course can be reversed and, without demagogy but starting from the knowledge of some ongoing processes, they are optimistic about the future of our city.

The imminent opening of the station of Giugliano of the regional metro (scheduled for December 2008) and the next ones European funds of the Campania POR (2007-20013) represent two very precious opportunities for our community. In the first case the concept of distance will be revolutionized; it is therefore precisely this the moment to try to overwhelm their condition and habit provinces to marginality. In second case the community institutions have finally adapted the financial instruments to the difficulties of territory, they understood the critical issues and slowness in spending and reporting, have identified environmental remediation and redevelopment of cities the main objectives. We have to take advantage of it because it's the last chance.

And, believe me, this time we are able to grasp the chance offer from the European Union. In fact, we are leaving after five years of Administration and many more things still to do, a city for sure stronger: on the economic front (with the revenues from the water agreement and a substantial administrative surplus); on the social front (with the institution of the "house of rights", assistance for the disabled, centers for the elderly, nursery schools, the Roma Camp project, etc.); on the environmental front (with a clear position of clear contrast, from day one, to the crimes environmental and legal and illegal waste storage sites, the start of landfill reclamation processes, state restoration ordinances of places, the establishment of a municipal observatory on anomalous outbreaks tumors); on the organizational front (with the establishment of the Environment Office, the appointment of external managers and the Evaluation Team, optimization of municipal expenses, the assignment, after almost fifteen years, of the second part of the fruit and vegetable market, etc.); on the legality front (with the recovery of REA assets seized from the Camorra and their destination to public activities – the financial police barracks, the court, the university); on the urban planning front (with the launch of projects for the beach plans, cimiteriale, dei colori; the unblocking of building permits in amnesty stopped for over twenty years, the control of illegal residential construction and commercial, the 60 acquisitions of the same number of properties to the municipal heritage illegal, the several hundred refusals of applications for building amnesty, etc.); on the structures front (with the park and the archaeological museum of Liternum, a new sports hall, the awarding of the first municipal swimming pool and the old one sports hall, the various new and strategic project financing, etc.) e of infrastructure (with the reconstruction and completion of roads, pipelines water and sewerage systems, public lighting networks, cycle paths, etc.) started also thanks to the interception of several tens of millions of euros of funds Europeans.

Local reforms, pass me the expression, start quietly, away from the city councils where the parties tried to find a balance in a phase of political procrastination and which will be completely visible to the city only in a few years. But above all with respect to which, whoever comes after us will have to explain any reversals of direction to the city.

Transformations made in silence, without even a demonstration public policy in favor, not even a manifesto of the majority parties which responded to the dozens of false accusations that the undersigned also faced undergo in recent years. Only the enthusiasm and the firm belief that with will you can change things, even the most difficult ones, even in the territories of the Camorra, he did it move forward amidst a thousand obstacles.

I also have to say that mine administrator experience was a bit anomalous for the controversial relationship of various councils that have followed one another and the Mayor himself. Cut it with the political forces. This is not the place to go into more detail about the issue, but that's enough observe that one of the main reasons for this singularity is also linked to the recent one formation of the new Democratic Party which gradually emptied the two main parties majority (Margherita and Left Democrats), historically equipped with a great organizational tradition also at a local level, generating a phase of confusion that contributed to distancing the municipal administration from party politics and, perhaps, also by citizens.

We have achieved many things but, at the same time, I believe that with a more united political majority and with a Strong Democratic Party, starting from the many results obtained it will be possible to achieve them paths that still seem today unthinkable. And that only with a city council not distracted by political tensions, it will be possible to plan the reclamation of the territory, redesign the coastline, redevelop the historic center and the many neighborhoods degraded areas of the city, carry out correct planning and address, seriously and in the long term, including the delicate employment issue.

But I am of the further opinion that, alongside political organizations, it is necessary an effort of all the best energies of this city; and me I am referring to passionate students, serious professionals, teachers willing, to the honest and determined police forces and to all citizens who have confidence to spare: Giugliano can aim high and transform, as I have said several times, the mud of these years in gold!

An appeal, In the end, to most young people: who know how to recover the best of past experience and integrate it into their legitimate expectations of government. Because it's true that in a democratic civilization every man has the right, as well as the duty, to administer the res publica. But it is It is also true that in times of discouragement one risks losing one's bearings and falling into disarray again in the error of bearers of change of the early nineties.

They passed just under fifteen years and all the knots are coming to a head on one side and the other of the political spectrum!   

(from article in "Abbiabbè", Giugliano in Campania, 01/26/2008