The president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, dismissed this Friday the head of the Island Plan Office, Leopoldo (Polo) Díaz, who had been in the position for 20 years. In addition, he has done so just before delegating the government areas to the councilors of the Cabildo, since one of his partners, the PSOE, opposed this measure. In fact, this and other differences have delayed the distribution of areas in recent days, which, under the agreement signed between CC and the PSOE, establishes that Territorial Policy remains in the hands of the socialists.
Now, although San Ginés has already made the distribution public in a press release, the PSOE councilors have not yet accepted the delegations. In this way, the dismissal of the head of the PIOT Office could trigger the first crisis of a government that has not yet been formally constituted.
In his resolution, San Ginés alleges "loss of confidence" and organizational "needs" of the Cabildo to remove the official from his position and return him to the Presidency area as a Technician for Assistance to Municipalities.
The "hidden" report of the La Geria Plan
The dismissal of Leopoldo Díaz comes shortly after the controversy unleashed by a report prepared by this official on the Special Plan of La Geria. The report was commissioned by San Ginés himself, who intended to "counteract" the devastating opinion made by the Cabildo's lawyer Joana Macías, at the request of the Court that is investigating the Stratvs case.
However, despite repeated requests from the opposition and in particular from the PSOE, which at the end of the last legislature accused San Ginés of hiding that opinion, Leopoldo Díaz's report has not yet been made public. In addition, the socialists also denounced that the modification of the La Geria Plan was intended to be approved in Plenary without reports from Cabildo officials and with the sole opinion of the island director of Territorial Policy, which is a politically appointed position. Now, San Ginés has decided to dismiss Leopoldo Díaz just before handing over the area of Territorial Policy to the socialists, which until now he personally held.
In his resolution, the president also announces "investigation proceedings" against the official, against whom San Ginés has already acted on other occasions since he came to the Presidency of the Cabildo. In fact, it is not the first time that he has removed him from his duties or even opened proceedings against him. And until now, in all cases there was a request from Juan Francisco Rosa behind it, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is asking for 15 years in prison in the Stratvs case, which is just one of the criminal cases that are open against the businessman.
Other proceedings at Rosa's request
In 2013, San Ginés already opened "proceedings" against several Cabildo officials, including Leopoldo Díaz, when Juan Francisco Rosa submitted a letter to the Cabildo requesting disciplinary proceedings within the Heritage area. The businessman alleged that the technicians had incurred in alleged "serious" and "very serious" irregularities in the processing of a file linked to new works that he intended to undertake in La Geria.
Rosa's complaint came two months after four Cabildo technicians (two from Heritage and two from the PIOT Office) went with a judicial commission to the Stratvs winery, required by Judge Silvia Muñoz. Four business days after receiving this letter from Rosa, Pedro San Ginés signed a provision to open "information proceedings" and adopt "provisional measures prior to the eventual start, if applicable, of the corresponding sanctioning files."
In addition, although Rosa only referred in his complaint to the Heritage area, San Ginés extended the proceedings ex officio to other departments and ordered that the complaint also be forwarded to the heads of the Environment and Island Plan services, "as possible departments affected by the resolution that may be adopted."
Removed from issuing reports
In 2010, the businessman Juan Francisco Rosa also sent another letter to the Cabildo questioning other technicians. At that time, he requested Pedro San Ginés to remove Esteban Armas and Leopoldo Díaz, technicians from the PIOT Office, from issuing reports related to his illegal hotels. Rosa alleged that these two workers had a presumed "manifest animosity" towards him, and an alleged relationship of friendship or connection with the César Manrique Foundation.
At that time, Rosa was trying to regularize his establishments, since the sentence that had declared them illegal was in the execution phase. When these technicians issued a negative report, the businessman asked that they be removed from that task, even stating that his company felt "persecuted and mistreated by those responsible for the Lanzarote Island Plan Office."
The president of the Cabildo did not respond to that letter from Rosa, but he did respond to another presented in the same sense by Urena Montain. Thus, on October 15, 2010, San Ginés decided to remove these technicians not only from issuing reports related to Urena Montain S.A., which wanted to build a new hotel next to the Pechiguera Lighthouse, but also from all cases related to legalization files of illegal hotels, including those of Rosa.
In his battle against these two PIOT technicians, Juan Francisco Rosa even filed a lawsuit against them in the Courts, accusing them of alleged crimes of administrative prevarication, against land planning, negotiations prohibited to public officials and disobedience. However, his complaint was dismissed by the courts, and also the appeals he filed against that dismissal.
In the second resolution dismissing the case, the judge pointed out that there are no "minimally serious indications that there is disloyal conduct towards the Public Administration in the defendants, beyond mere conjectures expressed by the procedural representation of the plaintiff." For its part, the Provincial Court ratified the dismissal and ordered Rosa to pay the costs of the appeal, also recalling that the license of his hotel had been annulled by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, and that this was the "context" in which the reports of the PIOT technicians had to be analyzed.
