ROME – Private sponsors will be repairing the Eternal City’s imperious potholes, as well as restoring public parks, renovating school gyms, building cycle paths and redesigning squares and public areas, Il Messaggero reports.

 The Campidoglio palace has turned to private funds to put in place interventions that would usually be up to the administration of the area, but that the City of Rome is apparently not in a position to continue funding without external financial support, despite the local and additional taxes paid by Romans.

 Mayor Virginia Raggi’s council has decided to extend the public works sector that, until now, concerned only the restoration of cultural heritage. There are private individuals willing to put money towards the battle against the holes on the 5,500 kilometers of roads in the capital, or to deal with areas that still risk being returned to neglect and degradation.

 The resolution approved by the pentastellata administration, which will have to get the green light of the Capitoline assembly, expressly extends the field of sponsorships to the “three-year program of public works" and to the "two-year program of purchases of goods and services.”

 According to the new municipal regulation, administration can also “identify works, services an or supplies whose realisation is conditional on the conclusion of sponsorship contracts". In return, companies and individuals will be able to create advertising and promotional material, with their own brand, regarding the sponsored work.

 In Campidoglio, clashes regarding “crowdfunding,” the possible second step of the regulation, are ongoing. Various doubts surround the issue including the question of timing in relation to procedures used among citizens who are willing to finance certain interventions.