The Urban Planning Councilor in Arrecife and CC spokesperson, Samuel Martín, has apologized "on behalf of his party for the shameful Plenary session" that took place last Monday, in which it was approved to open the Avenue in one direction, without including for debate the joint motion that CC, PP and Ciudadanos intended to introduce as a matter of urgency. In it, it was requested that the south lane be completely open to traffic and the north lane with the current semi-pedestrian restrictions. A point that was finally not incorporated into the session, which increased the tension, palpable from the beginning.
In an interview on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, Martín, when asked about his own vision of the Plenary session, acknowledged "that the citizens of Arrecife do not deserve this, especially knowing the wear and tear on the political class on the Island, and also at the state level." However, he also took the opportunity to say that "the decision of the majority should have been respected above all, in this case the majority of the plenary session," referring to the joint motion of CC, PP and Ciudadanos.
The CC councilor has assured that "his party's proposal, first of all, was to consult the citizens on which option was better for the Avenue, but due to the inability of the mayor of Arrecife, Eva de Anta, it was not carried out because she (the mayor) says it would take a year to do it."
Martín went so far as to accuse his government partner of having "dictatorial" attitudes. Despite this, Eva de Anta responded in a subsequent interview, also in this medium, that she was only trying to "defend a project that aims to recover the city and the enjoyment of the Avenue by the people."
A "useless and sterile conflict"
De Anta has insisted that "you should always try to maintain appearances." "We must think that we are the image that watches over the citizens and, therefore, in that sense, we must set an example, be conciliatory and speak in a good tone and in the way we understand each other," he added.
However, the mayor has also acknowledged that "in this plenary session, it was not like that," and has confessed that "the debate we wanted to focus on, which was the semi-pedestrianization or not of the Avenue, was put aside."
Despite this, he has admitted that "it would not be logical if in Lanzarote we did not finally have in some way a replica of what has also happened at the regional level," referring to the crisis that the PSOE-CC pact is going through. "I also don't want to give it more importance because we are going through a turbulent time in which, sometimes, the parties of political organizations forget the task we have or what the ultimate goal is, which is to serve the people," he stressed.
De Anta has branded what happened in the plenary session as a "useless and sterile conflict" and assures that "getting entangled in it has nothing to do with the general interest, something that the PSOE was trying to highlight, not only in the Plenary session, but during all this time."
Regarding the proposal that was not included in the agenda, De Anta has explained that "the report states that any point that has to be introduced in the mobility plan approved in the master plan, must be technically motivated and the execution of the works must be carried out beforehand in order to be assessed and approved in the monitoring commission." He has argued that, therefore, the non-inclusion "is not accidental." "Any type of important change in a work of this magnitude requires a series of reports and studies that support its viability, it is not served by taking a point to a plenary session without documentation. That is why we must be prudent when taking things to the plenary sessions and taking them with the respective reports," he concluded.
