Lanzarote En Pie (LeP) in the Arrecife City Council has pointed out that the budgets approved by the government group "are far from the reality" of the municipality. In a press release, the spokesperson for the political formation, Leticia Padilla, insisted that Astrid Pérez's budgets "make it clear that her management does not prioritize the real needs of the municipality and demonstrate that she lives in a different reality from that of her neighbors.”
Likewise, the candidate for mayor of Arrecife also points out that she does not know "what the priority of this government is, there are neighborhoods without sidewalks, with a deficient cleaning service, which need urgent and priority attention, and they do not even contemplate it in their budgets,” says Padilla.
In this sense, Padilla wanted to highlight that “in budgets in accordance with the neighborhood and city reality, it is not possible to include an expense of 480,000 euros for a fountain in a roundabout, given that 234,000 euros have just been spent on some planters, and leave the neighborhoods with impassable sidewalks.”
From LEP they consider it “incredible that the Arrecife government group is considering the installation of a fountain in the roundabout of the courts for 480,000 euros and that they allocate 500,000 euros to the Comprehensive Plan for Tinasoria.”
“The population of the municipality demands sidewalks, cleaning, lighting, etc., let the fountains and planters arrive when the basic services are covered,” they maintain from the municipal formation.
Regarding the budgeted items for the Social Services of the Arrecife City Council, Leticia Padilla wanted to emphasize the 12% increase announced by the mayor Astrid Pérez. In this regard, Padilla maintains that Pérez “has falsified reality because the budget items allocated to charitable and welfare care have been reduced by one hundred thousand euros, while the items for school supplies remain the same for three years, even current expenses have been reduced for this year.”
The municipal spokesperson regrets that the government group has not approved any of the amendments that Lanzarote En Pie presented to the 2023 budgets. In this regard, Padilla wanted to remember that “amendments were presented to allocate economic items to solve the accessibility problem that the environment of the two preferential motor centers of Arrecife has, for a sidewalk plan in the San Francisco Javier, Argana Baja and Maneje neighborhoods, for the construction of sidewalks in Tajaraste street in Argana Alta, and all were rejected.”
Likewise, the municipal candidate wanted to highlight that “we had to present an amendment so that an economic item was included for the creation of the municipal Canarian wrestling school because they forgot about it, and even so the government group refused to include it, despite the fact that there was a plenary agreement unanimously for the creation of this school."
In addition, Padilla points out that from the political formation they requested that items be included "for the creation of the library in Argana Alta, for the municipal shelter, for the improvement of playgrounds. We asked to increase the items for the rehabilitation of the city's cultural and historical heritage or for the creation of the municipal social rental office, among others. All rejected by the current government group of Arrecife.”
To conclude, Leticia Padilla wanted to express her dissatisfaction with the budgets because “they have not been participatory, because they have not taken into account the social reality and because they are the result of the bubble of unreality in which the municipal government of Arrecife has settled, with Astrid Pérez at the head.”