The controversy over the cancellation of Sunset Arrecife, after which Miguel Ángel Leal was dismissed as Tourism Technician of the City Council, could end up in court. In a harsh letter addressed to the mayoress, Leal demands to recover his position and warns that he will file a complaint for “threats” and for “incitement to commit a crime”.
According to the technician, in the days prior to the celebration of that event he was “coerced and threatened for not agreeing to the spurious claims of members of the Governing body”, among whom he includes the mayoress, Ástrid Pérez, the Councilor for Tourism and Commerce, Armando Santana, and the Councilor for Human Resources, María Jesús Tovar.
In his letter, the technician explains that it was in mid-August when he learned that it was intended to organize the Sunset Arrecife, through the area of Tourism and Commerce. However, Leal points out that it was a private event, “without the corresponding collaboration file established legally”.
Therefore, on September 27 he contacted the festival representative by telephone and told him that the City Council could not “take care of the needs of electricity, sound and infrastructure services”, since to “assume all or part of the costs of an event organized by a private company” it was necessary to have a collaboration agreement of sponsorship, opening the appropriate file.
Thirteen days later, on October 10, Leal claims that an advisor to the Mayor, Quico Aparicio, and the councilor Armando Santana met with him and gave him “verbal order to process and assume responsibility for the electricity and sound needs of the two events” that were going to take place in Arrecife within that festival, “as requested by the promoter”.
Faced with this, he maintains that he told them that since it was not planned, there was no budgeted item, and that there was no “material time” to process a file for approval of the expense. Santana's response, according to Leal, was to order that it be processed from the other area he holds, that of Commerce.
Without authorization from Coasts
In parallel, on October 11, the application for authorization for a public show was submitted, receiving an urban planning report that warned that it was also necessary to process the authorization from the Demarcation of Coasts. After contacting the promoters and requesting documentation, Classified Activities did not authorize the show, according to Leal, “despite which the assembly of light, sound and infrastructure for the development of the same begins”.
Always according to the technician in that letter, on the day the first concert was to be held, October 15, he informed the mayoress and the councilor that he lacked authorization, requesting that they pronounce “on the continuity or not of the same”.
Finally, he affirms that that afternoon Armando Santana “ordered” him not to continue the organization, while he did not receive “any communication” from the mayoress.
That led to the cancellation of the concert scheduled for that day, although the one for the following week remained on the agenda, which was also suspended at the last minute. On the eve, Leal reveals that he did receive a harsh message from the mayoress, through a Whatsapp audio: “You canceled it and one thing… if it's not set up here, what do you have to pay? If it's not set up, you don't pay, boy! You screwed up, fix it!”
That second one was also canceled 'in extremis', after two decrees were issued in the opposite direction on that same day. In one of them, from Classified Activities, the event was authorized, but Leal emphasizes that it lacked the mandatory authorization from Coasts, so “it suffers from fundamental authorizations” and “must be revoked, under penalty of incurring the prevarication prohibited by the Penal Code”.
He recalls that the City Council itself accuses him of prevarication in two cases
Miguel Ángel Leal recalls in his writing that he himself has been accused in two proceedings for crimes of fraud, prevarication and embezzlement. In one of them, within the Montecarlo case, he was recently acquitted, but he is still awaiting another trial that will be held in the coming months of January and February.
“In both cases, this City Council appears as a private prosecution, accusing me of crimes of fraud, prevarication and embezzlement, for having signed, it says, documents lacking the corresponding file and authorization of the expense with my signature; and they intend to coerce and intimidate me by forcing me to authorize an event that totally and absolutely lacks the necessary requirements for its celebration”, he denounces.
In fact, he adds that they came to “execute” that “threat”, both with his dismissal as Tourism Technician and with public statements “belittling” his work in the media.
The decree removing him from that position was signed by the Councilor for Human Resources on October 24, three days after the second concert was canceled. In the resolution, he was returned to the position in which he has his place in the Consistory, as a sociocultural animator, dependent on the area of Culture.
Now, in his letter to the mayoress, he demands that “immediately repair the damage caused” and invalidate that decree, returning him to the position of technician.
“In the event of not doing so, and without prejudice to the labor actions that correspond to me in law, I will proceed to file a complaint for, not only the threats, but also for the incitement to commit a crime, pretending that, as a technician, I authorize an event that lacks the administratively most elementary requirements for its celebration”, he warns.
