BUSTO ARSIZIO – The quiet after the storm. This is the sensation you perceive at Palazzo Gilardoni following the majority meeting which rejected across the board the proposal for a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan put forward bymobility councilor Salvatore Loschiavo. Now among the councilors there are those who are ready to keep him on the grill and ask for his “head” to the mayor.
The “hat-trick” of peons
In the Palace, mouths remain sealed, for now even those of the oppositionbut under the ashes lies a poorly concealed pride for the “lesson” that the peons of the council they gave to the executive part of the administration. Also because the stop at PUMS was the third and final act of a series of failures with respect to the initiatives brought to the attention of the majority. First the TARI, with the 9.6% increase submerged by the revolt of the parties and councillors, then the stalemate regarding the Agesp Spa’s proposals for investments of 4.5 million euros between the headquarters in via Canale and the new Beata Giuliana multi-collection center (judged too expensive and in need of downsizing) and finally the sensational sinking of the PUMStrashed with little chance of recovery, according to the technicians themselves in the meeting.
In addition to being “left-wing”, the plan would also have appeared very expensive, in the eyes of parties and councillors, with a total bill of 7.6 million euroswhich, although spread over several years, represented another reason for discontent among the centre-right ranks. Three clues prove it: the collegiality so much invoked by the majority has turned into a double-edged sword for those who govern. Parties and councilors now want to dictate the line.
What does Loschiavo do?
«The majority, including Antonelli List, blocks one of his councilors across the board on such an important project like the PUMS for which many resources have been spent: time, human and money – the consideration of Emanuele Fiore, municipal councilor of the mixed group – and now? I expect the distrust.” And if for Fiore it is “a logical deduction, not a request”, in the majority there are those who would expect it a gesture from Salvatore Loschiavo. But no one says it openly or even says the word resignation: «For two years he postponed every choice to the PUMS and Now that that plan has been rejected, what do you do??” the question of a majority councillor, strictly with “microphones off”.
What changes
The civic councilor is not speaking for now. At the end of the majority meeting it is said that it is apologized after the resounding rejection of the PUMS, while the mayor would have categorically excluded consequences for the exponent of his civic list. He doesn’t want to hear about a reshufflein short, at least until after the European elections. And we will see on the relationships within the majority: the “peones” have taken courage, but we will see over time whether they will be able to impose their own line also on other fronts. On the Pums instead we will try to recover something, at least to justify the expense of the professional assignment, even if mobility policies now all need to be rethought. And on Tuesday 23 April there is the city council, to test the state of relations in the majority, and understand if the opposition wants to plunge the knife into the difficulties that have emerged.
