We are increasingly witnessing the staging of political nonsense, the search for notoriety for notoriety's sake, people who defend absurd positions, empty of content and who pursue confrontation. This condition becomes evident when the "opponent" tries to make himself known in any way, in most cases without the legitimacy offered by unbiased information. Some don't know what to do to try to get votes, and although there is still a long way to go before the elections, they are already campaigning.
It seems incredible that in these times when citizens are beginning to question even the system that this country achieved with so many sacrifices, there are people who want to participate in politics by absurdly criticizing issues that should never be criticized, when they have to do above all with the effort of people who work for the citizen and who seek the best for the neighbor they represent. The penultimate, the presence of members of the City Council in different events. The attendance of both the mayor and the councilor and the tourism technician at a trade fair is essential. Both Fitur in Spain and the World Travel Market in London and the ITB in Berlin become annually the three most important events in the tourism sector in Europe, from where it is important to remind someone that they are 90 percent of those who visit us. Is it necessary to justify at this point that a municipality that lives mainly from tourism is well represented in this type of event? Some seem to think so.
For a few days, all the tourist destinations in the world come together to present the initiatives undertaken and to be undertaken in a market that is in constant change not only in what is offered but in how it is offered. Being there allows us to know how we should make our assets more interesting in an environment where the image is often more important than the event itself. Living oblivious to such a reality is living with your back to the present and the future, and that is something that anyone with a brain cannot allow.
To call our attendance to these events a "useless effort" as has been done by politicians who I understand do not quite understand what this ephemeral passage through public life is about is very regrettable, and highlights the poor professional and vital qualification of the person who does it.
I do not want to delve much into other words uttered by some members of the opposition and that I have had to read in these days, a part of the opposition determined to talk about an invented "institutional paralysis" that reflects exactly the opposite of what they see and what citizens I am convinced that they perceive. The government group that I represent can be accused of many things, never of being paralyzed.
This happens when actions are judged based on the reality of the critic. In Teguise we act differently; no one is essential, but we are all important, since for us the value of the team is what leads us to achieve the objectives we set, which are not few. We work transversally, understanding by transversality that the solutions to each issue that arises involve interdepartmental coordination within the City Council itself, considerably reducing the response time and the solution of each issue. Proof of this are the countless interventions that have been carried out in our municipality in a very short time, something that the residents are the ones who must judge and judge, based on what we hear every day when we step out to face reality head-on.
The result of this way of working is having achieved the solution of a historical demand that our neighbors in Costa Teguise had been raising, fundamentally the double tax burden that they had been bearing for more than two decades. It has not even been a month since we took charge of this issue and we think that criticisms should be based in a logical way, based on the facts, not on what is to be done. New equipment, new garden areas, replacement of pavements, beautification of deteriorated areas with the prior agreement of the owners, necessary municipal endowments and many initiatives of this type all aimed at improving the quality of life of our neighbors and those who visit us, who are undoubtedly the economic engine of our municipality.
To any representative of the opposition, whether they write articles in the press or not, I invite them to stop by the Mayor's office to discuss any type of issue that has to do with the municipality. I also invite them to come and collaborate with us, to contribute new ideas, to draw our attention to those issues that we have not noticed. If they do not want to do it, if what they want is to seek permanent entanglement with easy and simplistic criticism, I am sorry, but they will not find us. As usual, while those who want to permanently resurrect the ghost of the politics of the Island's sad past are in their things, they will catch us working.
*Oswaldo Betancort, Mayor of Teguise.
