The acting mayoress of the Arrecife City Council, Eva de Anta, has said goodbye to the citizens and the Corporation in the last plenary session of the mandate, which was held this Wednesday. "I leave being mayoress but I arrived without being one. And you are not born mayoress. They don't prepare you to be a mayoress", De Anta has stated, who decided to renounce her councilor's act for the next legislature to facilitate the PSOE's pact with the PP.
Precisely, for who will be the new mayoress of the capital, for the popular Ástrid Pérez, De Anta has also had words, who has wished her "the best". This has been her farewell and thank you speech:
Farewell speech by Eva de Anta
"Neighbors, councilors of the Corporation, today we celebrate the last Plenary of this mandate before the new corporation that will govern the destinies of Arrecife for the next four years takes office next Saturday.
It is, therefore, a day of farewells in which most of those who celebrate this Plenary today say goodbye that, if it is not definitive, will last at least four years since the new corporation will experience an important renovation. I consider it appropriate, therefore, to give the floor to those who wish to use it to say goodbye.
Those who have been in public life usually say that there is no greater honor than being mayor of the city in which you were born. I would tell you that it is not true, that there is an honor that is at least as great as that: being mayor of the city in which you have decided to live, of which you feel part and in which you have been received as one more citizen.
Today I want to recognize that feeling before you.
These years have allowed me to enjoy the honor of being mayoress of Arrecife and I am convinced that no matter how many turns my life may still take, I will not experience an honor as great as the one I have enjoyed during the years in which it has been my responsibility to occupy this responsibility.
I would like to share with you a reflection on this that, although obvious, is no less interesting: I am leaving as mayoress but I arrived without being one.
And you are not born mayoress. They don't prepare you to be a mayoress. You assume a challenge that forces decisions for which you are the last and definitive responsible. Whether you adopt them alone or agree with your group or with the plenary itself, in the end the decision is yours and the responsibility is yours.
Therefore, because I know the burden of occupying this central place in the Plenary, I wish all the luck in the world to whoever, from next Saturday, has the honor and privilege of occupying this place.
But I also have to recognize that those hard moments have been the least and that they have been accompanied by a multitude of occasions in which I have been able to feel the satisfaction of verifying that my vocation for public service had, and has, meaning.
Carrying out decisions that benefit the people of Arrecife is a wonderful feeling that I would like to be able to share.
There is nothing more dangerous, both in the political and functional spheres, than ignoring in the management of public affairs that each of the files that pass through our hands contains a story.
Every time we complete a procedure, from the beginning of the file to the last signature, we are contributing to a family receiving aid, to a small merchant being able to renovate their establishment, to an association receiving a subsidy or to the courts of a school being repaired.
That is, precisely, the most exciting part of the work we have carried out as members of this corporation, in my case as mayoress, and with our successes and our mistakes we have contributed to making this city a slightly better place, although not as much as I would have liked.
Sometimes due to my own mistakes, sometimes due to not being able to find the necessary collaboration.
But no. Now is not the time for balances or reproaches. It is the moment of gratitude for these years and, undoubtedly, also the moment of apologies for those occasions in which I have not been able to or have not known how to act with the necessary promptness and clarity in some of the matters that required my intervention.
I am aware that having tried to always act with responsibility, honesty and transparency does not guarantee success or insurance against the errors that I am sure I have committed during these years.
Yes. It is the moment of thanks and I cannot fail to refer to the staff of this house and remember that they constitute a group in which the majority are hard-working, capable and loyal to the institution and who have always given me their support.
Likewise, in that list of thanks I must include those who have accompanied me in my government group. It has not been easy. We are leaving this stage with some scratches but I hope that time will allow us to find spaces already free from the tension of managing a city like Arrecife to renew complicities and undo misunderstandings.
I don't want to fail to thank the rest of the groups for their collaboration. Not only for the times they have considered it appropriate to support some of our proposals, but also for the criticism that, surely, in some cases could have been more accurate than I would have liked.
Believe me, there are few words as beautiful as "thank you". Thanking is not only fair but also, to some extent, reliving the moments that justify that gratitude.
Therefore, this intervention, which cannot fail to be tinged with a certain melancholy, I will always remember as one of the most pleasant because it has forced me to remember all the reasons that make me feel proud, satisfied and, above all, grateful.
Finally, you will forgive me a small breach of protocol and democratic uses. Although we will have to wait until next Saturday, when it will be another
corporation that decides so, I would like for a moment to consider that our fellow councilor Astrid Pérez has already been elected mayoress. I will not be there that day, so please allow me to dedicate my last words to her.
Astrid, mayoress, I wish you the best. I hope you are able to win the support of this Plenary with more success than I had. I sincerely hope that not only my socialist colleagues, but the entire Plenary, will give you the support and help necessary for Arrecife to recover the time lost during too many mandates.
I hope you find the help of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the Government of the Canary Islands, which for too long have ignored this city. I sincerely wish you the greatest success in your task for the good of Arrecife and its people.
And now yes, now I say goodbye.
Thank you all, good luck and goodbye forever".