A week after the last meeting of the Island Council held last Friday, Coalición Canaria sent a statement giving its version of what happened and ensuring that the town councils where it governs “did not disassociate themselves” from their party in that meeting. In addition, it anticipates that Teguise, Tinajo and Haría will open the sports facilities, after having agreed this Wednesday in the Standing Committee of CC. However, it will not be immediately, but after Easter, on a date that has not been specified.
In reality, the power over municipal facilities has always rested with the town councils, which is what was recalled at the Island Council meeting held last week. This body was created to try to act in a coordinated manner between all the island's institutions, but its decisions are not binding.
Before that last meeting, the island leadership of CC sent a statement announcing that its mayors were going to ask at the meeting for the sports facilities to be reopened, pointing out that the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands “has always allowed the attendance of the public” in alert level 2. Even, they blamed the president of the Cabildo, María Dolores Corujo, for having “prohibited” it, and wondered if she had “any special interest in harming sports activity”.
However, in the same statement, CC admitted that in other decisions of the Board, specifically the opening of the artisan and agricultural markets, Tinajo and Haría had already gone their own way, although they have not done so until now with the sports facilities, despite the fact that they had the power to do so.
After that meeting, the Cabildo sent a statement on behalf of the entire Island Council, condemning the “attempt to interfere and destabilize” by CC. According to them, that note of rejection was agreed “unanimously”, including the three people who represented the town councils under the Mayoralty of Coalición Canaria. In addition, they pointed out that none of them defended that proposal at the Board, which in fact was not put to a vote. In this regard, what was agreed was to postpone the decision on sports facilities until after Easter, recalling that this will require “a Contingency Plan to prevent infections and disinfect the facilities, which will involve an economic cost and human resources that each town council must study”.
Since then, the three town councils under the Mayoralty of CC had not issued any public note to deny that statement. However, this Wednesday they were summoned to a meeting of the Standing Executive Committee of CC in Lanzarote, which has now sent a new note ensuring that these three town councils will open their sports facilities to the public “after Easter, to allow time to adapt the contingency plans, and strictly complying with the decrees and restrictions set by the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands”. The note indicates that this decision was adopted by the Standing Committee of CC.
Denial on behalf of the mayors
In addition, they assure that “despite the press release sent by the Cabildo”, the mayor of Teguise, Oswaldo Betancort, the mayor of Haría, Chaxiraxi Niz (Haría), and the Councilor for Sports of Tinajo who attended that meeting, Vianney Rodríguez, “maintained their position in favor of the proposal of Coalición Canaria that the rule established by the General Public Directorate for Phase 2 be strictly complied with and that the public be allowed to attend sports facilities with 25% capacity.
“At no time did we disassociate ourselves from our party's proposal”, CC assures that the mayors have pointed out, “reminding the president, María Dolores Corujo, that the aforementioned Board is not her property”.
“We preside over three of the seven town councils on the island and share government in a fourth and we are not going to allow the president not to respect us either as a party or as members of a Board whose origin is supposed to be consensus”, affirms the island secretary, Migdalia Machín.
"We build bridges, we are proactive and constructive and we are not going to give up at any time having our own approaches or tolerating the president continuing to use the Island Council politically”, she added.
Finally, Migdalia Machín emphasized that “if anyone can be accused of interference, it is the president of the Cabildo herself, who does not respect municipal autonomy or the legitimate approaches of a party that only intends to contribute to improve. “It is regrettable that she has been able to accuse us of attacking the lives of our neighbors for a political whim, when all that CC and its three mayors have done is put on the table a proposal for compliance with the regulations established by the Government of the Canary Islands for each of the phases of the pandemic”, she said.