“Commitment to our Bergamo”

Bergamo. And inaugural speech wide-ranging, capable of ranging from one theme to another, according to a growing logic, of telling the intentions of the government. That of the next five years. So Elena Carnevali, Mayor of Bergamo, in her baptism in the City Council, thus the first woman to ascend to Frizzoni Palacewanted to give a definitive start to his political mandate.

About forty minutes, after the passages that opened the proceedings of the chamber, more precisely the validation of the Council, of the elected municipal councilors and the appointments of the new Prime Minister, Romina Russo, and his deputy, an expression of the minority, Alberto Ribollathose that Carnevali took after his oath.

The tricolour sash is worn with pride, palpable emotion and even emotion, in two particular moments, when she talks about herself as the mayor of the city she loves and when she remembers the late Robert Browna point of reference in his early years of political commitment and a dear friend.

There are also many references to those who preceded her, Giorgio Gori, to the legacy collected, to the baton passed and also to the image and new face that the capital has taken on in the ten years that bore the signature of the newly elected European parliamentarian. And there is no shortage of warnings deliberately collected by President Mattarella: teachings that have the value of the pillars on which what is intended to be a good government of the territory will rest. Inspiring principles that return and return, as the foundation of every reasoning.

The mayor starts from afar, and does so by explaining the reason for the gift she wanted to give to all the elected councillors, 32 to be precise: “These are the minutes of the first meeting of the City Council on 3 April 1946, the first freely elected – he explained -. That meeting did not take place in this Chamber, but in the nineteenth-century one in Via Tasso, where, since 1874, the Council had convened. That first Council marked the beginning of the “democratic renaissance” and the “municipal rebirth”: the two foundations on which those administrators built the cultural, economic and social recovery of the City”.

“Reading these few pages helps us understand how deep, widespread and strong the “roots” of our people still were, which fascism had not managed to completely undermine. And it was precisely on these “roots” that the mayor of the time, Ferruccio Galmozzi, founded the program of democratic “rebirth” of the City, which was experiencing a profound crisis and needed to build a future. From July 1950 this Hall is “a sacred space” (without any rhetoric) because here the Councilors, since then, have always freely discussed and decided on how to solve the problems that the City encounters on a daily basis and create opportunities and conditions for citizens to live better and better. With this same government intent, I will work together on one squad motivated, cohesive, prepared, to whom I already want to say thank you. It is a council made up of women and men in absolute equality, of great seriousness and competence, who have my complete trust and who will dedicate themselves with great dedication to the tasks that have been entrusted to them”.

A speech that has the flavor of a stream of consciousness, reasoned and lucid, which touches on many topics, evidently dear to the mayor. From that of the woman, with the hint that she is “the first female Mayor: 78 years after universal suffrage, a Mayor is called to lead this city, a sign of a cultural change that is progressively taking place in Bergamo, as in other Municipalities, and not only in the political sphere. It is a historical fact of which I fully feel the importance and, at the same time, the great responsibility”, to the importance of the female role in the community “Bergamo is a city with a strong female presence, where women donne represent the majority of the population: listening to their voice, valuing their vision, supporting their action, guaranteeing equality and equal opportunities for all means giving back to the city its full potential”, moving on to the role that Bergamo has and must maintain with respect to the national and international scenario, to the challenges of the future and those related to Europe, to the great urban transformations, to work, to peace, to the entrepreneurial fabric through which everything passes, to culture, to the climate transition, to the city of tomorrow. Without forgetting the alliance and the pact with the institutions, to the desire to make perceived and experienced security the cornerstone of the commitment. The levers of social inclusion, sustainability, community welfare and rights, against all forms of discrimination and violence. A better Bergamo because it is fair. Democratically fair.

And if the post-voting analysis has its own reason, it also has it and above all because the numbers show that it was the person who won. Elena Carnevali. Capable of putting the citizen at the centre of his electoral programme. The person and his needs. “And we will do it by posing in the center the personfocusing our attention on those who still feel excluded from the opportunities that other citizens already fully enjoy. Putting the person at the centre then means putting the neighborhoods, the gaze of those who experience them. We want to continue investing even more in the “peripheries”, being inclusive and ready to face and mend fragmentations and critical issues. We will go to the neighbourhoods, we will be among the citizens, we will strengthen the participation networks: we will give studied, concrete and shared answers as much as possible”.

The main actors of a path that opens to the future are the young people, a topic dear to the mayor: “The young have been the heart of our electoral campaign and will be central in our five-year term. We have dedicated the Youth Housing Funda contribution to accessibility to subsidized rents together with social housing projects and new forms of living. Of their desire to play a leading role in the construction of the future city we need it, also showing a little more tolerance to their requests for spaces where they can meet and spend their free time and where they can organize events to give shape to their creativity. We know well that they also ask for co-working services and study spaces: we will work to meet their needs. If we talk about tomorrow we must once again talk about young people, about Bergamo campus: we want to accompany our University in its expansion path, with the construction of new structures for university residences in the former Montelungo and Colleoni barracks, with the renovation of the former headquarters of the Guardia di Finanza in via Statuto, and with the interventions planned in the former Gres. We will also support the strong vocation tointernationalization of the University, which has signed 365 agreements with universities around the world, which has 17 active Double Degree agreements with European universities and finances Erasmus scholarships or grants from the university itself to offer students mobility experiences abroad ”.

“You’ll see that Bergamo,” the mayor told us during the almost nine months of the election campaign. That of the future which also passes through an attentive look at the modernity of the times, and therefore the importance of the attractive function ofairport, an essential and untouchable institution for the development and well-being of the community, as well as that of new technologies. A growing city is also a community that lives the awareness of the time in which it is immersed.

“This is the Bergamo of tomorrow for which we will work without sparing ourselvesdedicating competence, tenacity and passion to it for the next five years: a Bergamo of all, full of care, liveliness, beauty, culture, greenery, international breath. A Bergamo where it is beautiful and easy to live. A supportive Bergamo that believes in the future”.

It couldn’t be otherwise.