Salobreña Town Council debated whether to lower the IBI percentage during the Plenary Meeting held on Tuesday, but it was rejected.
Another motion amongst the ten that were considered was one by Vox who suggested that Town Council should request that the Junta name the new medical centre (once it materialised) the Centro de Salud, José Salvany.
So, who is he? The Balmis Expedition, officially called the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, was a Spanish healthcare mission that lasted from 1803 to 1806, led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis, which vaccinated millions of inhabitants of Spanish America and Asia against smallpox.
The mission, on which José Salvany, was the deputy surgeon, is considered the first international healthcare expedition in history.
As a side note, in order to get the vaccine across the Atlantic in 1803, they took 22 children between the ages of nine and three, from orphanages and infected one every nine days to make sure theY could land with a human carrier to inoculate the South Americans with. One of the children died during the voyage.
The Spokesperson for Más Costa Tropical, Juan Collado, criticised the expedition for having used children as human guinea pigs. He instead suggested the name Salvador Villaescusa Pérez, who was a surgeon from Salobreña who “died from the flu helping Salobreñeros.”
Anyway, the Vox councillor withdrew his motion after the Mayor, María Eugenia Rufino, pointed out that the present health centre had born the name Carmen Contreras since 2016 and would take its name with it when the medical facilities were transferred to the new building.
After several other motions were tabled for different subjects, the one for IBI came up. The motion put forward by Ciudadanos Spokesman, Plácido Leyva, was to lower the IBI to 0.65 percent in order to “alleviate the tax burden on citizens during these difficult times.”
The Mayor said that her party would vote against it because the Plan de Ajuste (budget expenditure-adjustment plan) would already make things difficult for the municipal coffers next year, therefore to reduce income further would make it even more difficult to handle. The Municipal Accountant, Rocío Peñalver, was left to explain the details.
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)