Salerno, classroom between theft nightmare and many cracks

When she gets up from her usual place among the opposition benches and begins to speak to the Council Chamber, she confesses that she is still shaken and deeply upset by the attempted robbery suffered shortly before. Why “save” the councilor Elizabeth Baron from having her purse stolen in a bad way was only a coincidence, the husband’s decision to accompany her, also escorted by the dog. «I was at the height of San Michele, at the Mutilati – the councilor said – when a boy approached, he couldn’t have been more than 16 years old, who looked at me with the clear intention of stealing my bag. At the same time, luckily, he realized that my husband was a little further ahead and, probably, only for this reason he gave up his intent, running away».

What disturbed the counselor and school principal, however, was not so much the fear or the dread of being jostled until she fell on the same shoulder where she had already had problems, but above all the young age of the boy. «If in my place – he continues apologizing to his fellow councilors for the emotion still alive – If there had been a woman with a child or an elderly person, I don’t dare to imagine what would have happened». And the attempted robbery suffered – in broad daylight and in the heart of the city – by councilor Barone was the culmination of a series of interventions, coming from the opposition benches, in which it was repeatedly denounced how the security problem is becoming an alarm. «We are not in the Gaza Strip“, was the immediate response of the mayor VincenzoNapoli (accompanied by protests from several councilors) who then tried to argue by recalling the activation of the permanent presence of the municipal police in Piazza Amendola against illegal parking attendants and hoping for the now legendary inter-force controls.

But the only real clash between the councilors occurred over the need to authorize the covering with glass of a terrace of the building of the Department of Mental Health of the ASL Salerno in via Martin Luther King, in Mariconda. What made the councilors discuss for over an hour was not so much the value of the intervention on which they all agree nor the fact that it determines an increase in volumes, but rather the fact that, on the indication of the technical offices, the private individuals who may be interested in the new construction (to be built with a derogation permit) were not notified despite there being no urgency, considering that the request for expansion dates back to January. A passage that for the councilor of the 5 Star Movement, Claudia Pecoraro, makes the act non-compliant with the provisions of the law and exposes the Municipality to possible appeals to the TAR in which it would be defeated. «The citizens of Salerno deserve transparency and correct actions”, the councilor reiterated in the Chamber, supported also by the other lawyer colleagues sitting in the Council.

Confrontations between the majority and the opposition which, however, turned out to be simple skirmishes compared to the important cracks that have appeared in the mayor’s team. If, however, the abstention of Gennaro Avella of the PSI on financial measures passes almost unnoticed, the case explodes Sara Petrone. As he had announced at his inauguration during the council term, in fact, he would not have endorsed measures – especially of an economic and urban nature – whose genesis and solutions he had not shared. A position he maintained during all the Councils. But his abstention yesterday unleashed the ire of some fellow councilors of the Progressives group who imposed on the group leader Luke Sorrentino to intervene (unusually) to ask the “dissident” councilor for a definitive clarification. A confrontation that, as Petrone herself requested, will take place but with the mayor who has guaranteed that, subsequently, he will report to the Chamber. But several recommendations have been sent by the majority to the mayor so much so as to push the councilor Corrado Naddeo to highlight how the mayor’s team is showing clear cracks. On the political front, then, there is the farewell of Michael Sarno with the entry of Cyrus Jordan elected with Rinascita. Surrogacy that sanctions the exit of Fratelli d’Italia from the Salerno City Council.