Another tile for the mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, increasingly in the storm after pressure from Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to resign due to manifest inadequacy.
Yesterday Franco Bernabè, internationally renowned manager and former president of the Venice Biennale, resigned together with the entire board of directors from the Palaexpo in Rome in protest against the linear cuts by the Municipality of Rome which reduced funding from 14 to 8 millions.
The cuts, explained Bernabè who dryly denied any political connection with the ongoing clash between Renzi and Marino, make it impossible to develop the activities of a company which, in addition to the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, includes the Scuderie del Quirinale and the Casa del Jazz and that Bernabè himself had proposed to reorganize extensively, in agreement with the Region and the Ministry of Cultural Heritage.
The Palaexpo has increased revenues from ticket sales by 14% and those from sponsors by 44% ("With sponsors we are richer than the Louvre" underlined Bernabè) but with such a drastic cut in public funding, initially promised by the mayor, there is no it can do it and for this reason it has suspended the signing of the new maintenance contract. Hence the resignation of the entire top.
