The Plenary has approved, with the votes in favor of the Government Group, the abstention of Unidas por Lanzarote-Sí Podemos and the opposition of Coalición Canaria, Addendum I to the extrajudicial Agreement between the Cabildo and the Haría City Council. The president of the Cabildo, María Dolores Corujo, justified the need for this addendum in the harmfulness of the agreement, in its current terms, for the interests of Haría as reported by the secretary-intervener of the northern consistory.
As Corujo pointed out, "with the addendum now approved, the amount to be charged by Haría is finally set, which until now had not been determined; conditions are set for the delivery of the Casa del Cura to the City Council, once it is restored; and a clear payment schedule is established that is not subject to the will of the Cabildo." The aforementioned calendar involves the payment of six hundred thousand euros annually, for four years; one million euros, for ten years; and a final payment of 514,896.37 euros in the year 2034. Corujo has expressed her satisfaction with the agreement reached: "The important thing, above any other consideration, is that justice is done with Haría and an end is put to a conflict that should never have occurred."
"The origin of the conflict, a power conflict between Pedro San Ginés and José Torres"
María Dolores Corujo placed the origin of the Cueva conflict in a power conflict between the then president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, and the former mayor of Haría, José Torres. "The lawsuits filed by Haría against this Cabildo were mainly due to an unbearable clash of egos, a clash of personalities, a power struggle within Coalición Canaria," explained the president, who recalled that, as a result of that clash of egos, and after San Ginés' victory, José Torres was expelled from Coalición Canaria and Marciano Acuña was placed as a candidate, a man of Pedro San Ginés, endowed with the necessary docility to try to fix the broken, repair the torn, that the then president had suffered."
"The disastrous defense of the Cabildo"
"You are also ultimately responsible for the resounding and unbearable failure of the Cabildo in the courts because to defend the Cabildo in a matter so important and vital to the general interests of the island you did not hire any expert in the matter. No, you entrusted the defense of the Cabildo, in such an important procedure, to a friend of yours, Ignacio Calatayud. You have put your interests and your personal relationships above the interests of this island and this corporation," the president reproached Pedro San Ginés, recalling that, even, deadlines were missed in some procedures.
The president also recalled that the judicial trajectory of the conflict of the Cueva de Los Verdes is made up of four procedures, "all of them lost in a resounding manner by the president's close friend." "The Cabildo was ordered to remove La Cueva and Los Jameos from its inventory of assets. The courts caught Mr. San Ginés cheating and told him no. That he could not record as property of the Cabildo what was already Haría's," the president recalled.
"We were also convicted by a ruling of the TSJ of March 17, 2016, which annulled the 2011 budget for not including the item to comply with the payment of the fee to Haría and again by a ruling of the TSJC, of October 27, 2017, which condemned the Cabildo to include in its budget the amounts owed to the city council," Corujo lamented, recalling that, "in addition to the fees, the lawyer-friend received the distinction of being immortalized in Pedro San Ginés' sunken museum: "A museum that contains, by the way, four statues of his close friend Ignacio Calatayud. Not one, not two, ... but four statues, paid for with public money from all the people of Lanzarote: as if each statue reminded us of each of the four lawsuits that this Cabildo lost with the Cueva issue."
The report of the intervener-secretary of Haría
The president also recalled that the report on the harmfulness of the agreement now modified, issued by the secretary-intervener of the Haría City Council, begins by warning that the Municipal Corporation approved the agreement in breach of the condition established by the previous secretary-intervener, which required for the signature the preparation of a report establishing that the agreement was not harmful to municipal interests. As for the substance of the matter, "the report indicates that the only amount committed by the Cabildo in a certain way was the amount of six million with which the Haría Development Plan would be financed. Furthermore, it was clarified in the agreement that although the Development Plan was annexed, with an amount of 18 million euros, the aforementioned plan was included as a reference to the agreement, without implying any payment commitment on the part of the Island Council," Corujo explained. However, the amount certified by the Financial Economic Director of the Centers that corresponded to be paid, which corresponds to the income from ticket sales in the Cave during the period considered, amounts to 12,914,896.37 euros, once discounts have been made on account of the fee.
Finally, the president recalled that "the report of the secretary-intervener warned that the alleged payments made by Pedro San Ginés could not be considered as such since they were the ordinary subsidies that corresponded to Haría based on its population."
The motion of censure
Corujo regretted that a motion of censure has been presented against a mayor who has only defended the interests of the people of his town and had words of recognition for the councilors of Coalición Canaria in the municipality: "I know that throughout the entire negotiation procedure, all the councilors of the government group had full information on the situation. And I know that, in a decision that honors them, they initially gave their consent, even when they were aware of the problems that this situation could generate for them."
The president has highlighted that "in an unprecedented decision, the permanent of Coalición Canaria has intervened in what should be a free and sovereign decision of its councilors, preventing them from supporting an agreement beneficial to Haría and imposing on them, above all, fidelity to the legacy of who commands over Coalición Canaria." As a result of this unbearable pressure, the pact has been broken and a motion of censure has been presented to Alfredo Villalba, for which Corujo has lamented that Haría will have, at least, four changes of mayors in just one legislature. "What I do not understand is a pact by which Coalición renounces a year of mayorship of its candidate and gives it to José Torres. One more proof of the importance of women in Coalición Canaria," the president concluded.
