The party of José Torres Stinga, who initiated the lawsuit of the Cueva de Los Verdes, was left practically alone this Saturday in the Plenary voting against the new agreement negotiated with the Cabildo to execute that sentence that gave the Consistory the reason. Paradoxically, only one councilor from CC has voted alongside the councilors of the Municipal Platform of Haría, who is the only one who has followed the guidelines set by his party to defend the previous agreement signed by Pedro San Ginés.
In the case of Torres Stinga's party - who has delegated the justification of his vote to the number two on his list, councilor Evelia García - he has pointed out that "no matter how many reports from the Intervention and the legal advice" exist endorsing this agreement and confirming that it complies with the provisions of the sentence, his party is not willing to support it. "What needs to be done is to comply with the sentence. Start from minute one," he has demanded.
"Has possession of the property been taken? That is part of the execution of the sentence. Has anyone gone with the secretary or the notary?" Evelia García questioned, who has suggested that the City Council should go to "take possession" of La Cueva and then "go talk" with the Cabildo. "Let it be clear: La Cueva belongs to Haría," she has defended.
For his part, José Torres then took the floor to announce that they will now request an extraordinary Plenary to request the execution of that sentence, which has been final for more than three and a half years, and to annul the previous agreement - signed in 2016 - and that of "all those that it may give rise to." However, at the same time, he announced that they were going to vote against declaring the agreement signed with San Ginés detrimental to the Consistory. That is what was going to be done in the next Plenary - which finally has not been necessary to hold - based on a report from the intervening secretary, who with that declaration of detriment proposed to initiate the procedure to declare it null.
"I have never heard so many lies together in my life," responded the mayor, Alfredo Villalba, after listening to the interventions of the Municipal Platform of Haría. "There is only one truth in everything that Evelia has said: that two of the people who accompany her were part of what was initiated at the time. And I praise them for having done what I am doing here today, which is to defend the interests of this municipality, above any political affiliation. I have not initiated this lawsuit, but I do intend to put an end to it," Villalba stated.
Among other things, the Municipal Platform of Haría has maintained that the City Council should claim more money from the Cabildo as compensation. Thus, compared to the 12.9 million euros that the municipality will receive, they raise it to "18 million of capital plus interest," which they have estimated at another 4 million euros. Thus, they have proposed a total of more than 22 million euros, although they have not explained where that initial calculation of 18 million came from.
"The compensation has been quantified by the Intervention services, not politically," the mayor has responded, referring again to the six favorable reports that this agreement has, two from the City Council and four from the Cabildo. And he has referred in particular to the opinions of both the previous auditor and the current one, which are the ones on which they have based to define the steps to follow. "I do not think anyone doubts the impartiality of two technicians, national officials enabled," Villalba has stated.
In addition, he has insisted that the quantification of the compensation is "exactly the one contemplated in the sentence," which established that the Cabildo should deliver to Haría all the income received from the sale of tickets since the City Council urged it to leave this center for non-payment of the fee. "Not one euro more, not one euro less. This is not an auction to see who offers more," the mayor has warned.
For its part, in addition to questioning that the Cabildo has not also been claimed for interest, the Municipal Platform of Haría has added other demands, such as demanding that the job vacancies that arise in La Cueva be occupied by people from the municipality. And it is that although they have repeatedly referred to the fact that the City Council must "take possession of La Cueva," they have then reopened the door to maintain the current situation, ceding its management to the Tourist Centers.
In this regard, Villalba has explained that that is the part of the previous agreement that is maintained, since there the conditions in which that cession is made were already resolved. To that, now the part that had not been included, relating to compensation, has been added, and a clause has also been included in case of non-payment, by which the City Council would recover La Cueva.
However, the Municipal Platform of Haría also defends that it is necessary to start that negotiation again from scratch, and even that the agreement should have "a duration of a maximum of ten years," so that the Corporation that is then "can decide the model."
"The tenant cannot set the conditions," Torres Stinga has repeated on several occasions, who has been called to order at different times by the mayor, for the personal attacks that both Torres and his partner Evelia García have launched against him. Among them, they have also included allusions to his arrival at the Mayor's Office, which occurred after not having been able to close an agreement between the PSOE and the Haría Platform, which claimed the baton of command and was finally in the opposition.
In addition to several dialectical crosses with the mayor, José Torres Stinga has also had another with the intervening secretary. The official took the floor after Torres questioned that the deadline to declare the previous agreement detrimental expired on October 28. The former mayor has put this on the table within his justifications to announce the vote they planned to cast in the second plenary, also opposing that declaration of detriment, and announcing that they now plan to request a different procedure to annul it, for which he has announced that they are going to request an extraordinary plenary.
In this regard, while being interrupted on several occasions by Torres Stinga, the auditor has explained that the suspension of deadlines that came attached to the state of alarm - which was what Torres appealed to defend his argument that the deadline expired later - it is not clear that it can be applied to this case and that in any case it would mean "putting it at risk." "If it is done before the 28th, it is certain that they will not throw it back at you," the auditor has settled.
However, finally it has not even been necessary to carry out that vote, when the addendum that comes to cover the deficiencies of the previous agreement was approved, which according to the legal reports was "detrimental" to the City Council and did not include "any provision on compensation for damages to which the Island Council of Lanzarote was condemned."
Now, Torres Stinga has made it clear that he will try to annul this new agreement as well, in the Plenary that he has announced that he will request, so the decision could once again be in the hands of the Canarian Coalition. From this party they have been in talks with José Torres Stinga and for weeks there has been speculation about a possible motion of censure, although what happened this Saturday in the Plenary with the CC councilors - who have voted freely and four of them outside the guidelines that the island leadership had set - opens new doubts about the future of the government of the municipality and also about the reaction that the party will have with its councilors.
