We had an invitation from the CA (Benavides) to attend a press call at Hotel Victoria Playa because after 18 months of staying away from cameras and microphones, the ex-Mayor of Almuñécar had decided that he wanted to speak.
Juan Carlos was at his most charming, having the gathered journalists laughing at several very Benavidian comments, but that, of course, was not the reasons that he had made the press call; he wanted to roundly criticise the present municipal administration.
He said that he had let one and a half years elapse to see how Mayor Trinidad Herrera would do, and he wasn’t impressed. In his opinion the town was dirty and had generally gone down hill. He believed that the Mayor had spent too much time and energy on fiestas rather than sorting the town out in these dire times.
“I understand the tourism development of the municipality to be a two-wheeled cart, with one wheel being the private sector and the other, the municipal administration. If we take into account that four days ago the Municipal Tourist Board budget was approved, we see that for the first time in 29 years a local businesses assembly was excluded – it seems that there is no ‘symphony’ [between the private and public sector] and there seems to be the intention of functioning without them [private sector],” observed Juan Carlos Benavides.
When questioned about the situation of the 7-star hotel, he said that together with the Centro de Investigación de Subtropicales, nothing has been done, finishing his criticism with, “The administration only seems to work well when it comes to organising fiestas.”
Asked whether he was considering a return to leadership of the CA and candidacy for Mayor, he said that he had spent the last 30 years of his life in Almuñécar, having arrived when he was 28: “I have been and always will be available.”
The Seaside Gazette pointed out the comments left by Doctor Linda Solkaski from the town-twinning delegation from Hendersonville, USA, where she criticised the town’s politicians for their bickering and leaving a promise not to return. He was very surprised and said that he would be responding to that comment on the forum. We had previously also made this forum comment known to the PP, by the way, who also said they would be following it up.
We asked him about the A-7, or better said, the lack of it and he replied that the situation is shameful and the result of a ping-pong match between the two main parties, with the PP championing its completion whilst in opposition but meekly silent now that their party is in power in Madrid. His evaluation of the PSOE concerning the A-7 was equally scathing.
Questioned about the 18m-euro-debt inheritance that he left behind, he pointed out that this figure was the accumulation of the debt left by all previous administrations. He also claimed that upon leaving office he left a 12m-euro surplus in IBI (property tax) untouched, which he considers has been squandered on fiestas.
Regarding his time in office, he said that they had got things right and got some things wrong, and to claim otherwise would be untrue, but he believes that they have learned from their mistakes and wouldn’t be making the same ones twice.
Finally, asked about the Town Halls intention of paying 400,000 euros in compensation for the dismissal of the Town Hall workers, one of whom was the Municipal Surveyor, after the provincial court found that they had been ‘unfairly dismissed,’ he considered that the town could ill afford such a squandering of public funds and that they should accept the workers back.
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)