The Popular Party and Citizen Alternative (AC) have attacked the deputy mayor of Arrecife, José Montelongo, for the license granted by the Technical Office to councilor Nayra Callero for a minor work on her penthouse, which "finally consisted of an increase in the habitable area and a terrace enclosure." The PP has demanded Montelongo's resignation or that the mayor, Manuel Fajardo Feo, dismiss him, while Citizen Alternative believes that "he must leave if his private life prevents him from performing his public duties."
On the one hand, AC has asked the mayor of Arrecife to resolve the "scandal created by José Montelongo" and his "inability to demand" that councilor Nayra Callero comply with "urban planning regulations." This party has insisted that the license granted to Callero was to demolish a lower partition in the house, despite the fact that "what was executed has nothing to do with said authorization."
Citizen Alternative raised two questions this Monday in the Arrecife Plenary to find out if the license granted to Callero "by her sentimental partner" conformed to the work carried out and, if not, whether measures were going to be taken by the City Council. According to AC, Montelongo "surprisingly" did not answer, "hiding behind the fact that as an interested party he did not have to give an answer." In addition, AC criticized that the mayor "was absent from the plenary session just when these questions were going to be asked."
Given this situation, the formation has presented a letter in the municipal registry addressed to both the mayor and the Technical Office and the Urban Planning Infractions department, to "denounce this breach by Nayra Callero," according to a statement. The party has stated that it has been "forced" to take this measure "given the ignorance that the mayor seems to have about everything that surrounds the City Council" and given the "inability of his first deputy mayor to perform his duties."
AC has asked the mayor to "make decisions." "If his first deputy mayor and head of Urban Planning, José Montelongo, proves incapable of carrying out his work due to personal and private interests, he has to leave office," this party has requested. Otherwise, he added, "Manuel Fajardo must make the decision to dismiss him."
"Really serious"
The PP has also spoken out strongly on this matter, expressing its "discontent and unease" at the "refusal" of the government group to answer questions about the works in Callero's home, which it calls a "turncoat councilor."
The coordinator of the PP in Arrecife, Dácil Garcías Dévora, has stated that it is "really serious" that the head of Urban Planning, General Plan and Classified Activities "tolerates and allows an urban planning infraction to occur, while the rest of the citizens are sanctioned." "Councilor José Montelongo has signed decrees of closures and work stoppages on certain files because he understands that they do not meet the legally required requirements and, for this reason, we ask that it also be applied to himself and Nayra Callero," he demanded.
For the coordinator of the PP in the capital of Lanzarote, the urban planning regulation criteria to which any councilor is subjected "must and has to be the same as that applied to the rest of the citizens." The PP understands that "it is not an honest act" on the part of the deputy mayor to "allow an irregular work in the penthouse of his partner Nayra Callero."
For this reason, this formation has demanded that Montelongo and Callero also resign from their positions as councilors and that "the altered order in the home" be restored. "If José Montelongo does not make the determination to leave his position, the mayor must dismiss him from his duties for breach of the oath he took when he took office," the PP insisted.
