“With reference to the occupation by this Association of the municipal premises located in via E. da Buti (former Leopolda railway station) it is noted that the concession for use of the mentioned premises is expired and therefore the procedures aimed at regaining possession of the property in question will be activated. This recovery will take place following an on-site inspection, aimed at ascertaining the actual state of the property, and the simultaneous joint signing of a specific return report. In this regard, it is specified that if it becomes necessary to restore any interventions carried out by you without authorization within the terms of the law, these must be carried out at your expense in advance of the date of the inspection mentioned. It is also understood that, until the date of signing of the aforementioned report, the property remains subject to the payment at your expense of the compensation relating to the current year, which will be calculated in proportion to the days of actual occupation”.
This is the text of the letter that the Municipality of Pisa sent, on 16 April, to the Casa della Città Leopolda. The associations, on Facebook, communicated the fact with bitterness: “The Municipality has finally managed to move away the Leopolda from the Leopolda. The bureaucratic, at times contemptuous, tone of the letter is striking. Also striking is the Mayor’s refusal to grant a meeting to the associations”, they write. Then they continue: “We do not know what will happen in the next few days, nor what the future of the ongoing activities and projects will be. At this moment we breathe a climate of sadness combined with a large dose of anger.”
The relationship between the administration and the associations is not idyllic. “In 2019 – recalls the Casa della Città Leopolda – the Mayor attempted to distance the associations with the proposal to bring the fruit and vegetable market back to Leopolda. Then the economic blackmail started: you can stay if you manage to pay the astronomical rent requested by the Municipality. Once the agreement expired, the Mayor decided to scrap everything and entrust the management to Patrimonio Pisa srl. A thousand other solutions could have been found to safeguard the heritage of ideas, people and projects that gather around the Leopolda discussed in recent months when we were involved in writing the project for the Città Italiana dei Giovani award. Unfortunately, the objective has always been to close a virtuous, inclusive experience, capable of representing a positive reference for the city community At this moment we believe it is appropriate to stop here. Despite everything, the belief remains that we have left a precious, perhaps imperfect, certainly authentic trace”.
The list in the Municipality Council Rights in Municipality contests the administration’s decision, while the Cub basic union asks for guarantees for the 3 employees of the structure. The Democratic Party also sides with the Leopolda associations. For Andrea Ferrante, Pisa city secretary of the Democratic Party and municipal councillor, it is “a serious mistake, in substance and method” made by the administration. “We had asked – in the council debate – for adequate time to discuss in front of the citizens the future of these resources, which belong to everyone, without forcing or rushing forward. Since then we have found a worrying closure, which had seemed to us to be the prelude of a possible political ‘coup de mano’, with which to put the interested parties and the city face to face with a fait accompli, without any project having been discussed other than the commercial exploitation of the property. It is surprising that, with so many assets, there is little valorised and used, the Municipality wants to start right away extinguishing a positive experience and alive. We ask the council to stop and start again from a dialogue with the associations”.
