Floriana's parking proposal

I refer to the letter by Georg Sapiano (November 23). He criticised the approach adopted by the Floriana local council for its determination to introduce timed parking in Floriana. How can he justify the procrastination of the authorities to ignore four separate requests by the council to meet and discuss the matter? Is this acceptable to him?

For the sake of the readers I am reproducing an extract of the press release issued by the Floriana local council on November 8, 2006, regarding the ultimatum to ADT:

"The council is therefore giving an ultimatum of one week to ADT for it to approve its limited time parking proposal. Failing this, the council would have no other alternative but to start preparing the necessary infrastructure for the introduction of the system in a short time."

This course of action was unanimously agreed upon during the council meeting of October 27, 2006. This goes to show that this is not my opinion but that of the whole council. We have no intention of breaking the law, as Dr Sapiano tried to infer, but to have equal benefits, by far less rigid to the half hour limit granted to other local councils,. This is what I would have explained had I been given the chance during his programme.

Besides, I do not need any lectures on what democracy is. I know very well what it means in reality. Moreover, the clothing that I don is not that of a "sheep", as he sarcastically implied, but that of a "shepherd" in so far as I have a responsibility towards the people of Floriana who, I repeat, are still outraged at his attitude.

Finally, I must affirm that I am proud to represent the people of Floriana, who are convinced that the council is striving against all odds to give them their rights which they duly deserve.