“It’s everyone’s dream to be a prince.”
Luca Sellari, Mayor of Filettino, Italy
For some people, a little bit of power goes a long way. Just check out what a couple of small town mayors in Canada and Italy have been up to.
Mayor Rocks Ex-Wife
Dany Larivière, the mayor of Saint-Théodore-d’Acton, Canada (population 1,494), didn’t let a divorce stand in the way of giving his ex-wife a really big gift for her birthday. Mr. Larivière, who also owns an excavation company, dumped a 20-ton boulder on his ex-wife’s driveway, topped with a giant bow and spray painted with a happy birthday message. He says that while they were married, his wife complained she never had a rock big enough for her tastes. Mr. Larivière’s ex is not amused. She wants the boulder removed immediately; he refuses. The police are looking into the matter, but Mr. Larivière doesn’t expect any political fallout from his actions. After all, he says, it’s a small town.
Mayor or Monarch?
Italy, like the United States and a whole lot of other countries, is in the middle of a debt crisis. One of the ways the government is proposing to save money is to combine the governments of towns that have fewer than 1,000 residents. Luca Sellari, the mayor of Filettino, Italy (population 598), says heck, no. Filettino plans to declare independence from Italy and operate under a monarch. The town has already begun using its own currency and has designed a coat of arms that can be found on T-shirts and liquor bottles. Mr. Sellari will be meeting with a lawyer to see what needs to be done to declare independence legally. He thinks Filettino can someday be like San Marino, a small principality surrounded by Italy but independent. It is the oldest surviving constitutional republic in the world, and it has no national debt. Maybe Mr. Sellari is onto something after all.
Read the articles:
- Mayor faces probe over dumping boulder on ex-wife’s driveway
- Italian town prints its own currency to fight austerity measures
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