Mayor: Dal Molin vote will be held

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Mayor: Dal Molin vote will be held
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, September 11, 2008

The mayor of Vicenza, Italy, has rejected a call from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to cancel a vote next month on the future of the Dal Molin airfield.

Achille Variato was quoted in numerous Italian newspapers as saying the Oct. 5 referendum will go forward. He said voters will be asked to express their opinion not on whether the U.S. should be using the land, but if the city should purchase it.

According to reports by dozens of Italian media outlets, Berlusconi had sent Variato a letter essentially stating the vote would be useless. According to a report filed by La Republica, a Turin-based newspaper, he wrote: "… the area is state (federal) property and not for sale. …"

He also said the federal government had reached an agreement to allow the U.S. to use the land and had authority to do so.

That agreement already has been challenged in court. A regional court in Venice issued a ruling in June that agreed with an appeal by a consumer advocacy group that the agreement between the two countries didn’t follow proper procedures. That decision, however, was overturned by the country’s highest appeals court a few weeks later.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57340