The new government of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, between Podemos and PSOE, completed its first 100 days of management on April 15, a symbolic date that the purple formation wanted to take advantage of to make a review of its management.
The councilors Myriam Barros, Jorge Peñas and Elena Solís, accompanied by the general coordinator of Podemos Canarias, Laura Fuentes, valued this first government experience as a “starting point towards a new way of making transparent and close public policies”.
Myriam Barros was in charge of conveying the political assessment of the group. “There is no longer room for improvisation, short-sightedness or old inertia,” says the councilor, who adds that Podemos is now “a necessary condition to end the old ways of administering public affairs.”
According to the formation, the need for this change that they are trying to materialize in the institution comes from the “new social consensus, which are beginning to demand deeper reforms." “The future that had been designed after decades of political turnism is no longer valid,” she adds.
“Lanzarote must leave behind scenes of absolute embarrassment such as those we saw a few weeks ago in the home of a former president of the Cabildo,” adds Myriam Barros, referring to the search that the UCO carried out at the home of Pedro San Ginés within the framework of a new judicial investigation into the nationalist.
"Filling public spaces with life"
Podemos “brags” about unblocking some problems that they consider “endemic” to the institution, highlighting among them “the null management of the Papagayo camping area", which has been permanently open since this Easter. On this, the councilor for Youth, Education and Equality, Myriam Barros, assures that “it was more expensive to have it closed than to open it” and that the steps that are being taken in the installation “have the support of the different groups of caravaners and campers on the Island”.
In the same way, Barros wanted to highlight what in her opinion was a “powerful and ambitious” program that was organized from the Department of Equality to commemorate March 8, and wanted to thank “the collaboration and welcome that the feminist groups gave to the different activities of 8M”, assuring that “no other party would dare to celebrate”.
From Podemos they point out that another space “almost in disuse”, which is experiencing “a second chance” with the arrival of the purple formation to the island government, is the agricultural estate in the Maneje neighborhood, in which an Island Agroecological Center for citizen participation is being implemented.
The Councilor for the Environment, Biosphere Reserve, Animal Welfare and Food Sovereignty, Elena Solís, assures that from this center “community gardens can be coordinated in the municipalities, help schools implement their gardens and train and advise farmers towards the ecological transition of their farms”.
Solís also described as a “strong boost” the participatory process launched to find common solutions to the evident problems of overcrowding suffered by both the town of La Caleta and Famara beach and its surroundings. Through different assemblies and workshops, the different social agents involved in the life of the town worked “jointly in making decisions in political spaces where they are normally excluded”.
Public policies "that build the future"
For his part, the head of the areas of Employment, Housing and Open Government, Jorge Peñas, celebrated “the good employment data brought by Yolanda Díaz's labor reform” and explained the new approach he is giving to the area of employment “to adapt it to the needs of sustainability and equality required by the new challenges facing the island”.
“Recently, an employment plan has been approved for 17 young people under 30 years of age with different levels of education that will be financed with European funds,” said the councilor, who also wanted to advance “a social and green employment plan that will last for 3 years and will be a great opportunity for the future for many families”.
In terms of housing and despite the few powers that the Cabildo has in this area, Peñas highlighted that “some brave decisions are being taken that will soon bear fruit”, such as "the transfer of land to the ICAV for the construction of the first social housing in 26 years" or the study of a “program of subsidies to associations for the accompaniment, reception and management of properties for evicted families”.
Barros also wanted to talk about the future, when assessing the implementation of the “new School Health plan”, which next year will reach more than 6,000 students from different municipalities to promote healthy lifestyles through the new role of nursing in schools, this being the “the largest investment in a healthier and longer future”.
