It's not the end of the campaign, but the beginning. Because the beginning is half of everything, according to the philosopher Pythagoras of Samos. The beginning of our Government in Arrecife, in which we are going to change, to give a total turn to our municipality.
The current reality is that a citizen of Arrecife pays, no more and no less than 580 euros in taxes annually. It is the municipality where taxpayers pay the most in all of the Canary Islands for municipal services. We pay 117 euros more to the municipal coffers than the average of the Archipelago. How do you see it? Do you think it corresponds to the services we have received from the City Council until now? Well, it doesn't seem like it to me and many of my neighbors either.
My commitment, if the citizens give me their support at the polls, I am very clear: lower the tax burden from the first moment. I want people to have a higher purchasing power and have the possibility of allocating it to what they want, because I have the firm conviction that the citizen needs the confidence that it gives us all to have sufficient solvency.
In Arrecife, a total of 500 businesses have been destroyed in recent years. 500 dreams that have collapsed. I propose to make those dreams come true and keep them alive. My plan is to reactivate commerce, for which the reduction of taxes is an element, which as I said, is the key. We are going to awaken the city's economy, lowering taxes, increasing people's purchasing power, which will lead to greater consumption and the creation of jobs.
Another of my objectives is to open Arrecife to tourism and its Marina, to revitalize the city, to make it more attractive, to create economic and leisure synergies. The execution of the Icon of the Islote del Francés and the Congress Palace are two great essential works. They have to go ahead yes or yes.
I want to carry out a total transformation of the area of the Islote del Francés, I am going to return it to the citizens, to their city and I am willing to say that if I am the next mayor of Arrecife in six months I will close with absolute transparency the agreement with the owners to create a new reference space within Arrecife and Lanzarote.
Of course, I am convinced that we will be the ones to inaugurate the Arrecife Congress Palace, an infrastructure that the Government of the Canary Islands has denied us year after year, but we are going to make it a reality once and for all.
I am very concerned about how the neighborhoods of Arrecife are. They urgently need the Neighborhood Plan that we have designed to integrate them with the center. I want a balanced municipality in which there is hardly any distinction between the city and the neighborhoods. I cannot see how my citizens live without public lighting, with unpaved streets, full of potholes, with broken sidewalks, with neglected gardens.
Argana Alta, Altavista and neighborhoods in the center of Arrecife need a very urgent action. They are the great forgotten and I would dare to say, even punished by this City Council and that's enough!.
In Arrecife there is a large Sports Hall in which 12 million euros have been spent, but surprisingly it is closed due to deficiencies in part of its infrastructure. It seems unbelievable, but it is. I propose a plan to recover sports infrastructures and, above all, to speed up aid to sports clubs, which have been without collecting the promised subsidies from the City Council for up to two years.
These are some of my proposals and my team. They are achievable, clear and exciting proposals. I want to create and bring confidence to the citizens of Arrecife, that they trust in their future, in their history, in their singularities, in their
Because I am in love with Arrecife and I am going to make my citizens fall in love with it too.
Astrid Pérez Batista, Candidate for Mayor of Arrecife