On the 20th of June, the Town Hall announced that it would put forward a motion in the council meeting that same week for the town to assume the costs of finishing off the two ‘paralyzed’ underground projects, which have amputated the town’s two extremities.
Before I go on, let me point out that quite apart from this development, one-way traffic will be restored in Velilla, coming west, for the duration of the summer – thank God for small mercies… but on with the plot!
To complete these two building projects it would require 16 million euros from the municipal coffers, which, as you might recall, were announced ‘empty’ just a few months ago – but that is a different and ‘long’ story. The company in charge of the Velilla project gave unanimous support to the idea – there’s a surprise – because the town would pay them for the work that they have already carried out.
Then, on the morning of the town council meeting in the Casa de la Cultura, things went pear shaped, culminating in what can only be described as a highly controversial approval of the project.
First of all, the budget – which has been frozen for two years – was approved, thanks to the abstention of the PP, which gave the governing CA the majority of votes against the PSOE, IU and PA who opposed. The PP say that although they didn’t agree with the budget, it was necessary to get the budget through as the only way to sort out the car parks and by abstaining they had registered their disapproval without stopping the budget in its tracks. The PP has used this “support by abstaining” on many occasions, which is why the Mayor basically always gets his way when he needs something passed at the council plenary meetings.
Yet, when it came to the car-park proposal insults began to fly, resulting in the Mayor turning off the microphone of the PA councillor and the ensuing uproar in the meeting. It should be remembered that the PA was the Mayor’s old party and that the PA councillor was a hitherto keen supporter and protégé of the Mayor.
During the upheaval, whilst everybody was busy shouting, the Mayor declared the motion passed, with only his party’s votes in favour and everybody else abstaining. The opposition parties were astounded, claiming that they had not heard a call for a show of hands. And there was no show of hands; hence the controversy, because regulations stipulate that there must be some vocal or visual indication of a councillor’s vote – silence is not considered an indication. We shall be hearing more of this…