ROVIGO – They don’t think like their fellow mayoral candidate Ezio Conchi on the decision of the Municipality of Rovigo to appeal to the Council of State against the ruling of the Veneto Regional Administrative Court on the Iras Rovigo issue and the abandonment of Casa Serena (READ ARTICLE).
“We are perplexed: the Municipality, after having incurred significant sums to wage war on Iras, putting it in difficulty, and after having scuttled an agreement that would have allowed the redevelopment of Casa Serena, now abandoned to decay, and resolve Iras’s financial tensions , avoiding privatisation, after being defeated at the TAR, perseveres in the legal battle, having decided to appeal the sentence, which is difficult to reform given the reasons for rejecting the appeal, which I have had the opportunity to read”.
That is how Palmiro Franco Tosini, mayoral candidate supported by the Rovigo PD and the civic list of the same name at the local elections, he reads the developments relating to the Iras case.
“Honestly – he continues – we do not share the way of reasoning and governing based on opposition and closure, rather than on the protection of the fragile and of public goods and services. It’s not our idea of administration, it’s not our idea of community. This absurd litigation on the backs of the elderly and Iras workers must end immediately. Rovigo must rediscover a different way of governing, attentive first and foremost to the fragile and ready and sensitive to the requests of the territory”.
“We remember – continues Tosini – how the previous administration, after having blown up the agreement to save Iras and save Casa Serena, exacerbating Iras’s economic difficulties and effectively opening the doors to privatisation, argued that Iras would not be able to ‘give back’ Casa Serena to the Municipality, freeing itself from the management agreement, and how nothing was owed to Iras for maintenance. Theses not accepted by the TAR for reasons that are difficult to overcome. So that the Municipality, in addition to finding itself economically exposed, also finds itself with a gigantic, unmanageable, enormous empty property in Commenda, without any relaunch and redevelopment plan”.
“Now, regardless of legal issues, which have cost the community significant sums in consultancy – closes Tosini – I ask myself: does it make sense to continue along the path of opposition and conflict? Or perhaps the time has come to put, over purely economic questions and perhaps even personal pride, an idea of a city and services that are efficient and attentive to the vulnerable and those in need? My team and I are definitely leaning towards the latter hypothesis.”
“We believe it is time to say enough to an absurd legal clash between the Municipality and Iras and to focus instead on concrete and proactive issues, reasoning for the good of the city. The priorities are to protect Iras jobs and the quality of the service aimed at the elderly, relaunch Casa Serena, now abandoned to decay, and respond to the concrete needs of the community”.
Federico Frigato, candidate for mayor of the Rovigo Si Ama civic list, has no doubts to the news that the Municipality of Rovigo has decided to bring the dispute with Iras to the Council of State, challenging the decision of the Veneto Regional Administrative Court.
“We reiterate – continues Frigato – services, especially essential ones, aimed at an increasingly elderly population, cannot be managed through litigation. The principle is wrong, that is, to establish a contrast between the Municipality and Iras, where they should work side by side, for the good of the community, of the elderly guests of the retirement home in the capital and of the many workers who serve there. Disputes are expensive, they leave everyone in uncertainty for years, they slow down projects, investments and planning. Our approach is completely different.”
“If it is true that, currently, Casa Serena represents a big problem, being a property of gigantic proportions, empty, left to deteriorate, it is equally true that continuing to ‘ballot’ it between the Municipality and Iras will not produce anything good. You have to think about the future. In our program, for example, we launch an idea: to resume the interrupted dialogue between the Municipality, the Region, Ulss 5 Polesana and the other institutional actors who could be interested, to transform Casa Serena into a center of social-health, rehabilitation and welfare services for our elderly people”.
“We are thinking – concludes Frigato – of a large centre, also attractive for those coming from outside the municipality, for rehabilitation; to a day centre, with medical, nursing and health personnel, for the elderly; to a relief centre, for families who have dependent people who are not self-sufficient; to a housing complex, given that the Casa Serena apartments are already there. We must think about the good of the city and the community, not continue to exacerbate clashes that produce nothing concrete.”
 and Frigato (Rovigo Si Ama): Useless battle against Iras){kind=link}