May 2015, Regional and Municipal Elections, Coalición Canaria was (and is) clear about what the priorities of our municipality were (and still are). We prepared our list thinking about giving continuity to a work that we had been developing since the previous term; first as a group in the opposition and a year later (2012) holding the Mayor's Office and being part of a government group that worked wonderfully because if we all had something in common it is that Arrecife was our priority.
A great job was done carrying out projects and launching initiatives that everyone knows, that we have remembered a million times and that I am not going to repeat in this article so that I am not labeled as heavy.
But I do want to dwell on one of those great projects because I gave all my illusion, my effort and my work as a sports councilor to it, always supported by my party colleagues and by the human and technical team that was part of said Council and other departments of the City Council, who got involved so that everything would go ahead.
A project that just by naming it said it all: "Arrecife, sports capital". And we achieved it, we managed to have Arrecife recognized as the sports capital by supporting and promoting grassroots and federated sports; improving sports facilities and increasing our offer; launching promotional plans for sports activities; increasing the staff of the Sports Area to properly serve the clubs; bringing great sporting events to Arrecife that in turn dragged a quality tourism that is respectful with the environment? and we left everything prepared so that with just pressing a button, the Argana Pavilion would be a reality.
? And in five months they destroyed everything. They passed over all the work and the residents of Arrecife like one of the plagues of Egypt, or like Attila's horse that, as they said, where it passed grass would not grow again.
This is how they have left the capital of Sports?, dead, helpless, without sports activities, without high-level events, without care of the facilities, without Argana Pavilion, without subsidies, without support for the clubs, without presence in the tournaments? They have destroyed everything in an absurd and Kafkaesque way.
They have not known how to pick up the baton and continue the work, they have played with the illusion of the little ones by refusing to celebrate the closing of the Prebenjamín Football Tournament; an event that every year brings together the families of more than 350 boys and girls from all the clubs on the island?
That is what they have done; ignore all the values that Sport transmits: effort, overcoming, commitment, teamwork, perseverance, equality, respect, sportsmanship, solidarity, companionship, health care, and many more.
We continue working for sports, proposing initiatives such as the development of a sports infrastructure plan that, I imagine, they will approve in plenary and then keep in the drawer as they are doing with so many things.
But we have an opportunity, a great opportunity for Arrecife to regain its title of Capital of Sports. One year, just one more year and the polls will speak again. We have shown that if there is interest, things go ahead, if there is interest the clubs get paid, if there is interest the tournaments are held, if there is interest the great sports competitions are held in Arrecife, if there is interest, our children are not left without their closing ceremony? With interest, Arrecife will once again be recognized as the Capital of Sports.
Jacobo Lemes Duarte (Coalición Canaria), Deputy Secretary of the Local Committee of CC in Arrecife and former Councilor for Sports