The year ends full of different sensations and experiences. A year in which we have resumed activities and customs that we had to put aside for a while, and a year full of new projects and ideas for Arrecife.
Now I look back, over the last 365 days, and take stock of what we have achieved as a city. But not only in this last year, but since we came to the Government in 2019, with the clear objective of transforming the city.
In July of this year, when I took stock of three years of management, I said a phrase that I think summarized the main objective since I arrived at the Mayor's Office in 2019: "We are not going to give up until Arrecife is the capital that everyone feels proud of."
And in that phrase we have continued working throughout this last year, because far from being satisfied with everything we had achieved in the first three years, we have continued with that same line of work until the mandate runs out.
In 2019 we inherited a city practically in ruins, with infrastructures doomed to demolition, abandoned gardens, a fairly high unemployment rate and a general stoppage in all urban planning procedures.
We saw how it urgently needed to undertake works, such as the urban transformation that we presented on Tenderete Street, which began in these last days of December, or the comprehensive remodeling of the Plaza Pedro Alcántara, which we inaugurated last November, and which has revalued a deteriorated and forgotten area for previous governments.
In addition, we also undertook rehabilitation works in central streets such as Valencia or El Greco, where we also took the opportunity to carry out rainwater works, in order to try to alleviate the consequences suffered by the municipality every time it rains heavily.
Because it must be said, and that is that we have been the first government in many years to do rainwater works, despite the fact that, as everyone knows, it is not a direct responsibility of the Arrecife City Council.
Also during this year we presented the transformation project for Manolo Millares Street, which will change one of the main entrances to the capital and will prevent traffic jams during busy hours on that street, in addition to creating a much more accessible area with new green areas.
But we also decided to do works in public places, rehabilitating socio-cultural centers such as Argana Baja or the Youth Center, and we also started the renovation of the fountain in the Theme Park. And perhaps one of the great interventions of this year has been the installation of a new traffic light network throughout the capital's neighborhoods, which has managed to replace traffic lights that had been abandoned to their fate for more than 30 years.
We have also restored sports facilities, such as the Las Salinas soccer field, the Argana soccer field or the comprehensive renovation of the Titerroy Pavilion, and we have even presented very ambitious projects such as the comprehensive renovation of the Agapito Reyes Viera, a soccer field that was crying out for an intervention by the City Council.
This Consistory has not neglected the citizen at any time, and we also demonstrated this with the inauguration of the Arrecife Social Dining Room, the first of municipal ownership on the island, which feeds the most needy people in the city every day. This is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful projects in the history of this City Council, which demonstrates that for us, all the residents of the capital are equal and deserve dignified treatment from the administration.
In this same sense, we presented and granted social emergency aid, and for rent, which had not been granted subsidies of this type in this City Council for years.
We are a more than committed City Council, and we have demonstrated this, with the rehabilitation of the city's homes. We have been the City Council that has granted the most licenses to rehabilitate homes in recent years, licenses that have allowed us to revitalize and conserve our municipal heritage. Because despite what some people think, rehabilitating is protecting, and this Government has always been with the owners who care for and protect their homes.
We have not only been with the owners who have wanted to rehabilitate, but also with the businessmen who have wanted to build in our city, with interventions such as the new Open Mall shopping center, which has given more than 500 jobs in Arrecife and has considerably increased the commercial offer of the capital.
In addition, in this mandate we initiated the procedures for a historical demand from Argana Alta that no previous government had made: to cede land to house the Health Center. What's more, we worked to be able to change the use of land that the City Council had, so that it would become sanitary land, and that the future Health Center would be close to the residents of Argana Alta. Because it was our commitment to the citizens.
We are closing a year full of projects to improve our city, and we face the next one with the conviction that we will complete everything we started, and that we will even present new ideas for the benefit of Arrecife.
As mayor of Arrecife, I will continue working to ensure that Arrecife continues to improve, being a more friendly, green and accessible city. A city in which we all feel proud. A place we never want to leave.
Happy year 2023.
Astrid Pérez Batista, mayor of the Arrecife City Council