“Why did the person with the lowest score win?”

PERUGIA – The Municipality assigns its properties to local associations, but the “objective criteria” established in the tender were not followed in the final assignments, with those who obtained the most points seeing the premises taken away by those who had decidedly fewer. And controversy erupts. From those who, documents in hand, ask for an account of what was experienced, at least, as a distortion. This is the case of the Libero Pensatore association, which has been involved in the area for years with activities dedicated to a historical figure from Perugia such as Vittorio Gorini. And with its president, Angelo Fanelli, who between a question and a jab – in pure Gorinian style – tells Messaggero his doubts about the call for tenders released at the end of 2023, with the assignments from a couple of months ago. Announcement relating to 36 properties to be allocated, at a controlled price, to third sector associations.

«Working since 2009 with the APS Libero Pensatore for the recovery of the historical figure of Perugia Vittorio Gorini and local culture in general – explains Fanelli -, since 2013 in food self-sufficiency, and since 2021 in the international Erasmus+ training, we participated in the call with a detailed project, confident that we will finally obtain a location where we can carry out the activities that we have been carrying out in the area for 15 years since we satisfy most of the expected criteria”. Yet, in the end a “no” arrived. «We were surprised to discover that our project lost, despite having a score 3 times higher than that of the assignee – insists the president of the APS -; and like us, the 1st place winner, an association of disabled people who beat us by 5 points, also lost. As if that wasn’t enough, this association lost 3 properties for each of which, according to the official ranking, was the institution with the highest score”. And then Fanelli, after accessing the documents, began to calculate: «We are not the only ones in this paradoxical condition: of the 36 properties put up for tender by the municipal administration, only 10 (27%) were assigned to the “competitor” with the highest score, while for approximately 2/3 of the properties the municipal council has disregarded the criteria it itself established. Eight properties were even assigned to the participants with the lowest scores.”
Hence, a series of questions to Palazzo dei Priori awaiting an answer: «It is true that politics is responsible for making choices, sometimes divergent from objective criteria established officially. But if the criteria do not help politicians make decisions in 2/3 of the cases, it is reasonable to ask whether the pre-established criteria are not wrong. If criteria other than those in the tender are needed to grant public properties to associations that are “more deserving” than others, why not make them explicit from the start? If you then want, as has happened in several cases, to favor those who already have the structures (a legitimate choice here too), why make a tender?”. Libero Pensatore would have lost because they were «not exponential in the territory», but Fanelli recalls the projects carried out in recent years, including books, shows, a publishing house, the recovery of olive groves and also the activity of the Bagnaia grain club «cultivating grains ancient for food self-sufficiency in flour and pasta – insists Fanelli -. For 2 years we have been a node of the European Erasmus+ program, which with 97 points out of 100 judged our first project among the most innovative in Italy. And our second approved project will start shortly, an international training on the Way of St. Francis.” «Vittorio Gorini, on the other hand – concludes Fanelli -, had said it: with politics “it is more the loss than the gain”». But this time, perhaps, the right to an answer is “exponential”.

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