Venice, 8 March. – (Adnkronos) – If elected, he would be the youngest mayor of Venice ever. Simone Venturini, 38 years old, centre-right candidate, is part of that generation of thirty-forty year olds who in Veneto today lead the Region with Alberto Stefani, Treviso with Mario Conte and Bassano del Grappa with Nicola Finco. “I believe a certain generational alliance but also a certain homogeneity of belonging to the same political group is also an advantage for Venice”, he replies to Adnkronos who visited him in ‘his’ Marghera where he was born and raised. “I believe that if the mayor of Venice has the telephone number of the prime minister, the vice president of the European Commission, the ministers or the regional councilors it is an advantage for a city that needs cooperation on multiple levels. It would not make sense to place it in opposition”.
After some indecision about his name – “true, we waited a few weeks for all the ‘souls’ to be convinced and there was a common and total vision on the program, to avoid throwing names like Garibaldi” – all the parties (Lega, Fratelli d’Italia, Forza Italia, Noi moderates, Party of the Venetians) have decided to focus on a candidate “quite well known in the city” even if he will run with his Venturini Sindaco civic list, full of young people.
“I am not a youth activist and I don’t believe that scrapping is a value in itself but my value position is clear. On the other hand, I come from the young people of the UDC and I have never moved from there, so much so that I don’t belong to any party – he explains – My civic will be open to civil society, to people with very different backgrounds and not only from the centre-right: we will talk a lot about the center and the centre-left. I only asked the parties to propose names of quality. Having said that, it is right that in the city council there are representatives of all social backgrounds and age groups, this is not the case today”.
For Venturini the greatest value of good administration is “pragmatism and not anchoring to an ideology that is now out of date. I am for listening to everyone and retaining the best ideas, regardless of who proposes them and what party membership they have”. It is inevitable to ask him if he is not afraid of a certain Brugnaro effect, of which he has been councilor for 11 years. “We are a country that makes use of justice in a political key and therefore, from this point of view, I am not surprised by the fact that the centre-left tries to ride the anti-Brugnarism. It is their only glue and also demonstrates a certain absence of ideas, despite the fact that they started a year and a half ago already thinking about post-Brugnaro who could not run again. But there are already the first cracks on important issues for the city. Our coalition is more solid, it is not together to be the anti-something”, he replies decisively.
And he claims a certain difference in style: “I am committed to running a campaign totally with a smile, without ever falling into aggression or resentment, but unfortunately I have to point out that this commitment does not exist on the other side. It was enough to hold a cheerful press conference with a smile and the nasty and acidic press releases immediately started. I take note of this, for my part I want to run an electoral campaign in which I talk about my ideas and not attack other people on a personal level”.
However, he dedicates a thought to his main opponent: “Andrea Martella is a worthy and serious person, even though he is the expression of the apparatus of a party which is now distant from the popular strata. Perhaps it is the best choice they could have made within them, but administering a territory means having to deal every day with sewer systems that don’t work, problems with public housing, and a thousand other things that require you to get your hands dirty. Of course you also happen to meet the English ambassador, but it’s a completely different thing from pushing the button twice a week in Senate I am very afraid of a city that goes backwards not only in its ideas, but also in its interpreters”.
In the program of Simone Venturini, candidate for mayor of the centre-right in Venice, there is not only the commitment to continue – “better, to evolve” – the policies of the last 11 years “but also the duty to think big, as was done for the Bosco dello Sport which finally after 40 years will give Venice European-level facilities”. For Mestre he is thinking “of a ‘strong’ contemporary architecture operation like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, which is not reduced to the mere recovery of a property – he explains in an interview with Adnkronos – Mestre needs good ordinary administration and an extraordinary commitment to the recovery of its degraded areas, but it also deserves particular attention and there is the need to think and dream big. As was the case for the Mose, the one contested by those who are candidates for govern Venice after opposing him for 30 years”.
On Venice the discussion is equally disruptive in some ways, because it opens up to cars: “Yes, but only to those of those who want to live in Venice but work outside. Because there is a problem of houses but also of mobility. Therefore the municipal garage must be intended for residents only – specifies Venturini – And with the president of the port I will talk about reusing the entire waterfront of San Basilio, Scomenzera and the former harbor master’s office for the same purpose. Venice today lives on tourism and public employment, but it also needs a third leg which is private investments. I will create a task force – he anticipates – with all those people who are already in Venice, who are Venetians, who have moved here or who love Venice but live elsewhere but who have relationships with the world to help us bring here the best investments in terms of work, in technology, research, to bring jobs with high added value both to Venice, for some types of production, and, as regards the more industrial part, to Porto Marghera where there are already important signs of companies with interesting know-how but which must be consolidated. Of course, if you are the administration of no it is difficult for an entrepreneur to follow your whims, as with the black hole of Umberto I which we hope to bring to completion”.
