PESCARA. «Many people stayed at home, listening to us behind closed windows. And I understand it: there is still a lot of fear here. Because, for too long, citizens have had to put up with and suffer the abuses, harassment and bullying of the lords of the neighborhood.” The civic candidate Domenico Pettinari speaks in Via Lago di Capestrano, in the heart of Rancitelli and announces: «If we win, we will also take back the suburbs. With us in the Municipality, war will be declared on criminals.”
At 5.30pm yesterday, after the opening entrusted to Ernesto Grippo, Pettinari begins the second rally “under the houses of the drug dealers”: he held the first last Saturday in Via Lago di Borgiano. Among the passing motorists, some slow down and watch, some others stop and take videos with their cell phones. Pettinari sends a message to the other mayoral candidates running for the elections on 8 and 9 June: «In recent days they have gone to the suburbs after decades of abandonment and have discovered hot water», he says, «for twenty years I have been risking life and I will continue to do so. They should be ashamed and put on a mask: they go to take photos in the suburbs, but they don’t have the courage to hold rallies like me. The center-right and the center-left have failed: they are two sides of the same coin. Only we are the alternative”, he says, pointing to the logos of his civic lists, Pettinari Mayor and Citizens for Pescara.
The former regional councilor attacks: «We will evict all those who do not have the right from public housing to give housing to honest citizens. There are one hundred empty and never assigned homes because no one has done the work for 450 families waiting. Immediately, we must apply regional law 96 of 1996 which provides for the eviction of all those who occupy public housing illegally and without any title, assigning it, instead, to all those who really need it, such as the elderly and disabled”.
In the center of Rancitelli, a few steps from the place where on January 1st a drug dealer was stabbed and was saved only because that blade was deflected by a rib, Pettinari announces his plan of widespread checks: «Mixed patrols , on foot, with the police and also with the Army and the help of the local police, guaranteeing the security of the area 24 hours a day”.
Surprisingly, Don is also there to listen to the rally Massimiliano De Lucathe courageous priest who in an open letter published three days ago on Center he had launched an appeal to politicians to save the suburbs with more services and fewer public housing. «Thank you Don Max for what you do», says Pettinari, «you are a lighthouse in the midst of so much darkness. We will always be by your side.” And the civic candidate talks about services to be brought to the suburbs: «Yes also to the Abruzzo Region building. And then detached offices of the Municipality and safeguards of legality. It is our task”, explains Pettinari, “first of all to relocate some municipal offices in these suburbs, thus making it easier for residents to use them, furthermore, we must include social services based on predictive logic which allow us to identify all situations of hardship, so we can take charge of them and resolve them. Let’s not forget that the city of Pescara records a poverty rate of 29.7% compared to the national figure which stands at 20% and this is an important starting point that gives an idea of the size of the problem. We will extend a helping hand to those who want help, but that same hand will be the enemy of criminals.”
Pettinari’s recipe for relaunching the suburbs also includes incentives for trade: «We will carry out an incisive tax relief work», he promises, «which will give life to a real free zone, where new productive activities will be able to see the light».
