Another coup by the outgoing mayor Gian Carlo Muzzarelli who has already packed the boxes and is close to vacating the office in Piazza Grande. In fact, a few days ago he signed an agreement with the Islamic community to extend the right to use the area of via delle Suore, where the mosque and the municipally owned properties are located, for free for the next 30 years, i.e. until 2063, with the right to renew for a further 20 years, i.e. 2083.
The Islamic community itself posted on its social networks the moment of signing with Gian Carlo Muzzarelli and thanked Allah and all those who made this agreement possible. The resolution was dated 4 June and was published in the notice board on the 7th, Friday, a few hours after the end of the electoral campaign. In fact unappealable on an administrative level and incontestable, in time, on a political level.
Furthermore, at the council meeting on 4 June there was also an approval for the renovation project of the area and of the accommodation building and of the real estate complex owned by the Municipality for an amount of 2.3 million euros, mostly to paid by the Islamic community, but for 235,000 euros plus VAT paid by the Municipality. Economic commitment that can also be increased in relation to the possible expansion of the same real estate complex. Direct commitment to which indirect commitments of the Municipality itself will be added when it participates in the project phases with its own technical structures and resources. All this above the head of a city council that has been suspended for over a month in its activity and above all in the discussion of political acts.
The news naturally created dismay, especially among the mayoral candidates.
It was Maria Grazia Modena who broke the delay: “a few hours after the end of the electoral campaign. “A decision which cannot be defined as ‘ordinary administration’, of the extension for another 30 years of the free concession of the building in via delle Suore, headquarters of the Islamic Community of Modena, adding in the same resolution the granting of an economic contribution of over two hundred thousand euros. A council resolution which therefore commits the next municipal councils and other mayors for the future, with an absolute lack of regard for his next successor and a disgrace to the normal behavioral practices of an administration that has long since expired”.
And Maria Grazia Modena expresses “disdain for this decision of pure electoral cunning by Muzzarelli which sounds like an affront to the Municipality, the city and the people of Modena who are kept in the dark about the fact and who now find themselves faced with a fait accompli not even discussed by the Council expired but which Muzzarelli wanted to override and not respect”.
