We are at the end of a long electoral campaign which will end on Sunday and Monday with the end of the run-off between Alessandro Portesani (centre-right) and Andrea Virgilio (centre-left). It’s time for the final call to vote.
ALESSANDRO PORTESANI
“60% of the citizens of Cremona after the first round of the elections said that they want discontinuity and change with respect to the council whose deputy mayor is Andrea Virgilio candidate for the center left. I appeal to the people of Cremona themselves because this desire to change things be confirmed also during the run-off scheduled for Sunday and Monday. It is a last effort not only to make me win, but above all to make Cremona win.
We, like the many Cremonese who do not trust Andrea Virgilio at all, are fed up above all with the lies that this administration has told in these very long ten years of misgovernment of the city. One case above all is that of Palazzo Cittanova where the duo Virgilio and Burgazzi had announced the arrival of funding from the Lombardy Region which, in reality, had never been disbursed. They have demonstrated a mockery of citizens and an administrative incompetence of rare magnitude. The list of lies would be very long.
Instead, we want to say what we as mayor and as a government coalition will do in the first year of our administration if Cremona gives us its trust. A sort of contract between us and you dear Cremonese.
One of the fundamental points concerns families. One of the first measures will be an immediate increase in the ISEE threshold for access to services for families: something other than the increase in nursery school fees. We believe it is fundamental for the safety of family groups living in the city.
Then no more ‘blue bags’ for waste disposal. A true bureaucratic condemnation dropped on the heads of citizens dictated by an endless dirigisme by Virgilio and Galimberti. Nothing but simplification for the citizen. We found ourselves living with complicated and useless mechanisms.
Security theme; very heartfelt, despite the denialism of the current administrators. The garrison of Piazza Roma and the increase from 7 to 15 of the neighborhood police began immediately. Linked to this is that of urban decoration. We will launch an extraordinary Urban Quality plan. It will include the maintenance of all roads, public greenery and lighting. We know well in recent years how the city has been abandoned. Everyone knows, for example, the condition of the beautiful bridge in Viale Po; left destroyed after a storm two years ago. As a result, public utility works will begin.
Economy chapter which is certainly one of the cornerstones of our government program. The category consultation will arrive in the first 365. We will develop a specific variant of the Territorial Master Plan to review some choices relating to commercial and service policies. We will set up the Events area at the Cremona Fair which we consider of fundamental importance for the development of our Cremona. We need a change of pace, a new vision. More concrete. We are ready to rule the city. To bring new energy that is needed. Cremona certainly wins with us.
ANDREA VIRGILIO
Cremona must embrace the future, it must do so with the desire to accompany its citizens through the challenges of the ecological, energy and digital transition.
The commitment we make is to promote a city that is attractive to young people: the investment in the university goes in this direction. We must encourage new training opportunities and consolidate the orientation aimed at new generations. We have the task of making the city attractive for families, for leisure, we must consolidate the quality of our cultural offerings but also venture new forms of youthful expression.
It is the city that opens up to new entrepreneurial realities, that must encourage youth start-ups, that must look to other territories and new alliances with other centres.
Ours is the city of solidarity, where welfare is not a market, but fragility is taken care of. Let us therefore valorise public and private networks, let us put them together, let us invest in our roots, in our values. In a city where almost 30% of the population is over 65, realities like that of Cremona Solidale must be protected and also steered towards an increasingly effective service chain.
Cremona is the city that recovers its public spaces. We are doing it with the over 50 million euros invested in schools, parks, public housing, valuable buildings; we must do this by identifying new places to redevelop and the related financing channels.
Ours must be the city of sustainability. We must have the courage to face the challenge of renewable energy; accompany our production systems to the ecological transition through research; we must make the city more usable and more habitable; finally, we must also valorise our river as a driving force for tourism.
But attention to the environment also means allocating important resources to the territory: one of the first actions we will take will therefore be to share with the city how to allocate the two million four hundred thousand euros coming from Tamoil as compensation, for environmental interventions.
In recent weeks we have given our best, we have come a long way together. And it was the best part. Now it’s your turn. We’re back to voting, and you have to decide which city project you want to believe in.
I want a city that puts people, its citizens, at the center. Not only in extraordinary moments like this, but in everyday life.
What we will do, the projects we will invest in, the challenges we will take on, we will share them together. Around me there will be a renewed team of people with new experiences and new skills: I believe we need the courage to admit that the time has come to write a new path, a new political season for Cremona. This is the life commitment I make to each of you. This is the city that I see and that I want for the next few years. To build it together, go and vote on Sunday and Monday. Choose Andrea Virgilio mayor.
