YESTERDAY THE MILAN TO DRINK, TODAY THE URBAN MILAN. AND HOW DID IT GO YESTERDAY IN GORIZIA? AND HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY?

by DIEGO KUZMIN

The story of the skyscrapers of the “urban Milan” made headlines this summer, with the participation of politicians, administrators, entrepreneurs and professionals under investigation, but which struck above all for the high number of the many architects involved in various ways, over forty, with some of the most prestigious names in the Lombard capital such as that of Stefano Boeri, the archistar to whom we owe the invention of the “vertical forest”. A story that inevitably recalls that of the “Milan to drink” of the Craxian era of the 80s of the 900s, which resulted in the saga of “Clean Hands” which opened the Pandora’s box of that phenomenon then historically known as “Tangentopoli”, with the many and different consequent events, which determined the end of that Politics that had been born from the Resistance and that had developed during the post-war period.

It all began in Milan, on February 17, 1992, when the engineer Mario Chiesa, socialist and president of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio founded for the elderly and less well-off, was caught in the act by Di Pietro’s Carabinieri while trying to dispose of 37 million lire, the result of bribes on contracts, by throwing the banknotes down the toilet, which was not recommended by any plumber because they would have been found immediately in the inspection well. At first the event was defined by Craxi as the work of an “isolated puppet”, a splinter gone mad within the otherwise intact Socialist Party, but in a short time the phenomenon spread throughout Italy involving politicians and administrators, in particular socialists and Christian Democrats, with the Communist Party which at the time benefited from other funding. But for the Italian prosecutors it was now almost a mathematical equation: a Christian Democrat or Socialist administrator, who dealt with procurement, could not fail to be a bribe at the same time.

An equation that also took hold in Gorizia, especially after the prosecutor of Pordenone, Raffaele Tito, had traced in 1993 a bribe connected with the works of the Autoporto di Sant’Andrea, a work of the State, paid by the contractor to the Pordenone Christian Democrat Honorable Agrusti, through the Director of Works the engineer Gelserino Graziato, from Gorizia and also a Christian Democrat. At that time in Gorizia the Administration was center-left, with the Christian Democrat Antonio Scarano as mayor and the socialist Mario Del Ben as deputy mayor, who with the delegation to public works and urban planning theoretically kept “his hands on the city”, with the equation: socialists + works = bribes, which took shape when the Coops decided to build a supermarket in Via Lungo Isonzo, moreover, entrusting the project to a socialist architect, Bruno Brunello, whose long-standing friendship with the deputy mayor and party colleague was also known. There could not be anything unusual. The investigation begins, about sixty people are questioned, politicians, technicians and officials, and in particular all the municipal employees who had participated in the practices concerning the building permit, the various urban planning agreements and commercial license relating to the new supermarket of the Coop, which moreover was not part of the League of Cooperatives and Mutuals, the left-wing Legacoop, instead, they are the Workers’ Cooperatives of Trieste, Istria and Friuli, of the Christian Democrat area. Which, moreover, in a similar way and only about ten years ago, with urban planning variants and building permits, created a new supermarket in Via Boccaccio with all too much favor on the part of the Municipality, in place of the store on Corso Verdi, thus truncating any initiative capable of reviving the trend of the Covered Market with the stalls all full of old photographs of how we were, but desolately empty of vegetables and vegetables.

The custom in Milan was that when the interrogation did not meet the expectations of the investigation, the witnesses considered therefore accomplices were given the notice of guarantee that immediately reached the press, unleashing that media pillory that even in Gorizia destroyed a political class and the lives of many people who had always worked honestly for the progress of the city, with a spirit that was still almost Habsburg, never thinking of being involved in such matters. The alleged crimes were many, even thirty each, personalized on the suspect in relation to his professional activity. In the investigation, following the incident with Graziato and Agrusti, it was also discovered that some minor works on behalf of the Municipality, so-called “jobs”, had been imputed to the accounts of the Autoporto di Sant’Andrea, with false invoicing, i.e. the painting of the classrooms of the kindergarten in viale Virgilio, the parking lot on the left side of the Leopoldina gate and some maintenance at the Campagnuzza stadium.

During the many trials, most of the defendants were acquitted, in dribs and drabs for not having committed anything, for some the statute of limitations arrived but, in the conviction of the good faith of the work, the former deputy mayor Del Bel and the former council colleague Salvatore Colella resorted to the appeal process and were both acquitted in 2008 with full formula. After 16 years! A disproportionate duration for an affair that ended in nothing: “in those years I was also involved in three other trials [the odd jobs] and I always came out acquitted -Del Ben recalled in Il Piccolo of 21.12.2008-: I wanted my correctness to be recognized in this case as well, it was a matter of principle”, recalling the particular fury towards him but also that “the length of judicial proceedings in Italy is something extraordinarily inhuman. It destroys people.”

As for the duration of the trials, today we are in even worse shape and it will take quite a few years to understand what has happened and is happening in Milan, while in the meantime the conditions in the municipalities have changed. With the launch of the various laws for the reform of local authorities, inspired by the Minister for Public Administration Franco Bassanini, a former socialist, an attempt was made to remove the opportunities for bribes to political administrators, possible because the managers of the sector of competence were in fact also councillors. Del Ben had in fact been indicted because he was responsible for signing every act issued by his Urban Planning and Public Works sector, of which he also supervised everything arriving, letter request or complaint, which he personally read and then sorted for investigation to the competent office. He chaired the tenders and the Building Commission, which in today’s Gorizia that does not want snares was suppressed a couple of years ago. With Bassanini, the salary of mayors and aldermen was increased tenfold, which was half, with Scarano’s million and a half lire (750 thousand Del Ben) becoming 15 million with Valenti and 7500 euros with Romoli, but which today seems to be about 9500 euros gross we are or are not an autonomous region with a special statute, with direct competence over local authorities and the remuneration of administrators?

At the same time, any managerial responsibility, previously in the hands of the political administrator as still happens today in Slovenia and Nova Gorica, is removed to be entrusted to the managers who become the only ones responsible for every procedure (Rup of tenders, tenders, conventions, administrative acts, etc.) according to the practical and political guidelines provided by the administration at the beginning of the year, with relative judgment and report card at the end. Unlike Councillor Del Ben, who in his personal relationship with the technicians delved into every issue, whether technical or legal, the new post-Bassanini administrators have no idea of the issues entrusted to them nor do they know the very complicated regulations that have followed one another in construction, from the “Merloni” onwards, laws of 200 pages each with the bad habit of being radically modified on an annual basis with a new version of another 200 pages. Unknown to the subject, the political body often provides guidelines that prove impracticable due to the many rules to be followed. Unlike the first republic, in fact, with Merloni the time for the construction of a public work has dilated quite a bit, going from 3 years, between the tender project and the execution of the work, to 5 years just to open the construction site. Too long a time compared to the mayor’s mandate, which in the meantime had been reduced to four years although soon reduced to five, because it was not even possible to lay the first stone of a work that the new adverse administration was coming, which demolished the program as happened in Gorizia with the horizontal lift in the Bombi tunnel, scrapped to build the via Rastello in porphyry with the sign of the tram tracks of the past.

We need to speed up the times. But how to do it, if you know nothing and know nothing? You have to rely on the technical managers. But those tenured, since before the Merloni law, accustomed to following the regulations are not so quick in implementation and at a certain point it almost seems to be rowing against the ship and its captain: better to get them out of the way. Thus was established the fashion of contract managers, inaugurated by Riccardo Illy when he became president of the Region twenty years ago, with his law for the early retirement at 58 of employees of local authorities, at half a salary, which was difficult for the 1 million a month employee who would have taken half of it, but certainly a good incentive for the inconvenient manager who went from 6 million to 3 to stay at home, getting rid of the old bureaucratic technicians, even at a high price for taxpayers. After that, the new managers, not only technicians, arrive throughout Italy on call, with a contract linked to the achievement of the objectives and the mayor’s mandate in the style of the Spoils System which imposes the achievement of the objective indicated by the political body at all costs, even ignoring compliance with urban planning laws as in the classic example that happened in Milan, where a simple Scia replaced the Implementation Plan and the Urban Planning Variant. In the Bassanini there was also a sop for the people, response or silence-assent within 30 days for any request, soon evaporated with a myriad of local regulations, different for each structure and office, so much so that for a building permit that was previously issued in 30 days (after inspection and acquisition of health, urban, road and building commission opinions), a few years later with Bassanini and without inspections of the private building of Gorizia with appropriate regulations, the deadline had become 60 days, or even 75 because it is better to keep wide. The swarm of skyscrapers that suddenly appeared in the courtyards in Milan had been talked about for at least a couple of years and they were always the same names of architects who went around the city, professionals or municipal managers, members of the Landscape Commission who approved projects of the same building companies with which they had incompatible professional relationships. Or assignments from the municipal administration, always through the managers to whom the political-urban planning policy had been indicated for which with a simple Scia (certified notification of the start of activity) it was possible to proceed with the construction of a condominium of thirty apartments, without an implementation plan for the harmonious insertion of the new building in the city and without the payment of the expensive urbanization charges due to the city, so that the latter provides for the works necessary for the reception of the new settlements. In Milan, no bribes seem to have been found but, in addition to Stefano Boeri, the more than forty architects involved all have a turnover with considerable figures for consultancy and assignments from entrepreneurs or the municipal administration, with regular invoices and taxes included.

And what happens in Gorizia? Unlike the Lombard capital, skyscrapers have not yet arrived in Italy, but even here and for quite a few years now the same names of two architectural firms, the Stradivari of Trieste and the Gorizia DDM, have always been circulating in public works, which with intelligible design criteria have changed the face of the city by irreparably erasing with great professional lightness remarkable material parts of the historical memory of Gorizia, such as the gate on the Transalpina on the border with Yugoslavia or the wooden parapets by Max Fabiani in Borgo Castello and in the Mastio. Dozens and dozens of professional assignments, direct because they are below the threshold of 150 thousand euros envisaged to speed up public works beyond which a tender is needed that takes 3-4 months, not only from the municipality of Gorizia but also from the former Province, from Erpac, Gect and also other municipalities in the surrounding area, Mariano for the historic center of Corona but also Udine in the Cormor Park, except for two fiduciary assignments entrusted by the Rup of the Public Green for the bus stop in Corso Verdi and the pool of the Parco della Rimembranza, to a different architect, only by chance sister of his executive engineer. Why, one wonders, have public works assignments never been entrusted with the criterion of rotation? Yet it should be the political direction for any impartial administration. But perhaps, and perhaps more simply, it has never occurred to the political body that this trifle certainly penalizes the other architects, over 200 who work in the Isonzo area, who cannot be believed are certainly not equally capable.

Since the time of the Bassanini law, the political referent has thought well that it is better not to meddle in issues that can become difficult, as happened to Del Ben, instead foisting them on the Head of the Procedure, who also makes do as he sees fit, as long as he achieves the result. It is impossible to impute anything to the political referent. The Faculty of Architecture of Gorizia, financed by the Municipality, fires 50 architects a year, 500 architects in ten years, with most of these finding work in local authorities, perhaps after a degree thesis supported with the architects of Stradivari or DDM who teach design in the same faculty. Some signs of reference regarding the sympathetic teacher are inevitable, but the continuous reiteration of assignments to the same subjects, without competition or due rotation, certainly seems to be in contrast with the European directive of free competition, being able to be configured in abuse. And then, if the political referent is not even able to conceive of a functional result for the city to focus instead on the ephemeral, such as the last pearl of the very expensive 9 million multimedia Bombi gallery, with bicycles and pedestrians who can no longer pass under the Castle hill, or even the previous giant colored plastic puppets, Millionaires too, or the previous white bicycles that cost 1 million and disappeared in a short time, when 1 million still seemed like a large amount. What happened to them? Did someone take them?

What will happen to this city where getting around by car is difficult because of the pedestrian area of Corso Verdi, which is embraced by the one-way streets uncoordinated on all sides, even though the Municipality is equipped with a Traffic Office that every two years should update the city’s road system, according to the changed minute needs and without waiting for a new Traffic Plan that usually has long deadlines? The anxiety of gigantism clashes with functionality.

And even today it is difficult to understand how the idea of the one-way street in Corso Italia has slipped into the mind of Mayor Ziberna. Certainly not his own doing, although one of his first measures was precisely traffic, with the laudable reversal of the one-way streets on the sides of the Public Garden. Someone must have suggested the ‘good’ idea of experimenting, even if only partially given the obstacle of the island of Corso Verdi, the primary concept of the 1991 Traffic Plan which saw a one-way ring road with entrance in Gorizia through Via Duca d’Aosta and exit through Corso Italia, as if there could not be a different one, moreover demonstrated, with exit through Via Leoni and the long Isonzo with the Corso unscathed. Someone who even advised to do things the other way around. That is, precisely the reversal of the one-way on the Corso, inbound instead of outbound, in total inconsistency with the global vision of the flows envisaged by the Udine engineers of the primordial Traffic Plan, based in any case on a certain logic.

It seems that Lenin’s cook was the source of many of his reforms and so it is inevitable to wonder who is the great prompter of all these bizarre ideas that dwell in Ziberna’s mind, transformed from the beautiful city of when he was a young student into an old city without music like today, with the students who went from via IX Agosto from the Ribi bus station to school, while today they walk from the bus and railway station along the entire Corso, and tomorrow maybe to the end of via Vittorio Veneto? But who is this brilliant Spin doctor from Ziberna? Let us know. It seems that multinationals are very welcome managers with a past of great mistakes, believing that in the future they will not make any more: he could be the next candidate for mayor of Gorizia!