“Dialogue and collaboration for the metropolitan city of Sassari”

The meeting in recent days between the mayors of Alghero and Sassari with the president of the Region, who addressed, among others, the issue of the establishment of the metropolitan city of Sassari, is good news. For two reasons. The first is that there was a meeting between the two mayors and the president which marks, even visually, a reversal of direction compared to the total closure that the previous president of the Region, Solinas, always had towards our territory and its institutional representatives. There were numerous meeting requests from the mayors of the metropolitan network and TIPSS, the table of institutions and social partners of the north-west of Sardinia, to the president, all of which were regularly ignored, just as the documents sent to the president with concrete programmatic and institutional reorganization proposals. Therefore, the change in attitude of the highest regional office towards the institutions of our territory marks an important reversal of direction. It means a rediscovered spirit of loyal and respectful collaboration without which it becomes difficult for the territories to plan their future and for the Region to lead a balanced and shared development of the entire island. The second reason is having addressed the essential theme of the institutional reorganization of the territories and, for ours, that of the establishment of the metropolitan city of Sassari.

The lack of provinces, or rather, of their democratic representation that only the popular vote can confer, and for the metropolitan network the lack of constitutional dignity that has limited it to being a simple union of municipalities with few resources and no real function, has for too many years been one of the elements, perhaps the most important, that has held back balanced and shared territorial development. Certainly a meeting is not enough to solve such a complex problem, but having faced it promptly and in the right ways finally allows us to glimpse a concrete possibility of a solution. Likewise, the president and the mayors have assumed, with the meeting, a binding public commitment that will soon be filled with content, with timing and formal steps that must be implemented. As a mayor who, despite the numerous requests made with the other mayors, has lived and suffered a phase of total absence of relations with the presidency of the Region, all closed in its rooms and against any discussion, even simply formal, this start on such an important issue appears positive and worthy of being supported by everyone, majorities and oppositions, overcoming sterile partisan oppositions and working together to reach, with a united spirit and in the general interest, the new institutional design of the territories in the most shared way possible. The future of Sardinia and of our territory in particular is linked to this fundamental step with respect to which it is necessary that we all give a positive and constructive contribution.