Think badly and you'll be right. That was the maxim that prevailed last Friday in the minds of the majority of Lanzarote residents, and especially in the minds of the representatives of the Popular Party on the island. The hare was raised by some ...
Think badly and you'll be right. That was the maxim that prevailed last Friday in the minds of the majority of Lanzarote residents, and especially in the minds of the representatives of the Popular Party on the island. The hare was raised by some residents of Costa Teguise, who decided to immortalize with photographs a scene that they saw repeated every night. A scene in which some young people with helmets moved cranes inside a plot sealed off by the City Council. The conjecture was immediate: illegal works were being carried out with malice aforethought to continue with the frustrated construction of an apartment hotel.
And the Popular Party, shocked by these images that came into their hands, rushed to exhibit them publicly. And the saying "rushed" is never better said. Because in the end, it turns out that the young people with helmets were not "illegal" workers, but students of a crane handling course. And instead of bricks and cement, their hands focused only on steering wheels and gear changes, to demonstrate their expertise in driving these machines. Not in vain, they will soon have to take an exam to obtain the title in this course organized by the Labor Foundation of Construction.
So this group of students, with their teacher at the head, raised their voices to the sky after seeing how the PP spokesman in the Cabildo, Francisco Cabrera, appeared on televisions and newspapers showing the photos of the "crime". And when we from La Voz de Lanzarote visited them to find out what was really happening behind the sealing of the plot, they did not hesitate to pose for the camera to show that they have nothing to hide, and they lavished criticism on Cabrera. Because not without reason, they consider that before denouncing anything, the PP spokesman should have at least taken a walk around the place. Of course, had he done so, Francisco Cabrera would have saved himself more than one upset.
And it is that although the attitude of the residents of Costa Teguise was impeccable, and it is an example that the citizens themselves are involved in the surveillance to protect the laws and the territory, what is not so impeccable is that a political party makes the issue public without having reached the bottom of the story. In fact, not even the surface. And in the end, the complaint has turned against them and they have not only had to listen to criticism, but also more than one mockery, because without a doubt the story has its crumb.
But apart from the hilarity that the "confusion" generated can arouse, the truth is that this incident has several edges that invite reflection, because not only the PP has entered this chain. In fact, and after Cabrera's complaint, the Cabildo sent its technicians to the place, during the day, and even issued a press release in which they assured that no increase in volume was detected in the building in question. That is to say, neither they nor the Teguise City Council knew that a group of students was receiving practical classes on that sealed plot. They did not know it, nor had they detected the nocturnal movement, or at least not enough to bother to find out what was being done on that land. And, apparently, neither the owners nor those responsible for the course had notified the public administrations, which does not seem very reasonable given the circumstances of the plot that was being used.
Of course, after the complaint, everything has been crosses of calls, writings and technical verifications, and the concrete thing is that what the PP denounced could well have occurred. There could well have been workers working at night on an illegal construction, without anyone doing anything to prevent it, or to control it.
On the other hand, and in defense of the PP, the truth is that when we learned the news, we all fell into the same error, assuming that it was an illegal work. It is true that the popular ones lacked rigor, and perhaps they were carried away by the rush to try to expose those responsible for the City Council and Territorial Policy of the Cabildo, but it is also true that the real story is too far-fetched and that on this island nobody would think when seeing lights and nocturnal movement in a sealed work that the only thing that is being done is a course to learn how to handle cranes. Unfortunately, the examples of territorial abuses and violations of urban laws are many, and it would seem that the famous "think badly and you will be right" was coined in Lanzarote.
