“The municipality of San Bartolomé has let 1,500 jobs escape due to the poor management of the mayor, Alexis Tejera, and his government group”. This was stated this Thursday by the councilors of the Canarian Coalition in said City Council, David Rocío, Manuel Rodríguez, Isabel Sosa and Emilio Gil, who offered a press conference to take stock of what they consider to have been "two years of inaction by the Socialist Party."
The first to speak was the councilor and local secretary of CC in San Bartolomé, Isabel Sosa, who highlighted that throughout the eleven ordinary plenary sessions that have been held in the first 24 months of the mandate, CC has presented 28 motions, of which 11 have been rejected and of the 17 approved, only one has been executed, the one referring to the elimination of capital gains in donations and transfers.
“We don't know anything about the rest. Not even what has become of the creation of a youth employment plan, where it was approved to create the City Council's own funds and allocate them to a job bank for those under 35 years of age”, said Sosa, who also recalled that “we must not forget that we are talking about a youth unemployment rate that is around 60% in the municipality”.
"Nor is it known what happened to the motion, presented and approved in November 2020, for the creation of aid for therapy for minors with functional diversity, which would contribute to making the principle of equality effective," he added.
“Our position has always been to work for our neighbors and to extend a hand to the government, but they did not even accept a single one of the 54 proposals that we presented to respond to the needs caused by the pandemic”, said Isabel Sosa.
In CC's opinion, "San Bartolomé has a mayor who does not dare to show his face and has not accepted a single one of the six appearances requested by the nationalists". “He has not even wanted to explain to the residents a situation as complicated as the one derived from the water problems in the municipality, blaming Canal Gestión or the Water Consortium, when we all know that the City Council belongs to the Consortium; nor the problem we have with the local police since the powers were transferred to the Government of the Canary Islands, and nothing is known about the 11 agents that we are missing in the municipality to complete the ratio.”
For his part, the spokesperson for the municipal group, David Rocío, focused his speech on "the non-management of a mayor and a Socialist Party that in these two years have lived facing the gallery, selling smoke, with policies of promises without facts, photos, headlines and misleading news."
“The only thing they have done well has been to continue with some of our projects, such as the paving of one street of the five that we left prepared and the signage in the municipality”, said Rocío, who also assured that “we are not ashamed to recognize when something has been done well and we have congratulated them for getting the aid to the self-employed and SMEs forward, although they have not been enough. Rather scarce for such a complicated year."
In addition, he questioned that "they announced one million euros of aid of which only 226,000 euros were spent and rejected the CC proposal to take them out in 2021 and make them more flexible to reach more people."
"The same thing has happened with the El Quintero school," questioned David Rocío, stating that “they sold that they were laying the first stone when the reality is that the Government of the Canary Islands says that the project is not even out to tender.”
The councilor has also criticized the closure of Playa Honda Avenue to bicycles and, above all, the "absolute abandonment" in which he considers the industrial area to be. “The Playa Honda industrial area is and must be our engine because we are not a tourist municipality. This is what creates employment and, however, nothing is yet known about what the access will be like: now underground, then a walkway, then a road outside... And while the mayor decides with his photos, the only thing that is being achieved is to generate insecurity for both the investor and the businessman and the loss of new businesses and large areas and with them the impossibility of getting more than a thousand jobs in Playa Honda.”
According to CC, "the balance cannot be worse: a government group with nine released members who have the municipality and its residents neglected, with many photos and few facts." Faced with this, Coalición Canaria assures that they would have focused "on important issues such as developing the necessary land." “We have land for a senior residence, school, swimming pool and even for the day center without having to kick out the Regulatory Council or try to close the El Porvenir Society”, highlighted David Rocío, who added that “of course, we consider it essential to maintain employment and generate new jobs in Playa Honda. With the third lane, with little money we would have more access and exits to the industrial area, vital for the development of the units and we would not have missed the opportunity to have those 1,500 new jobs that are so needed”, he insisted.
