“If tomorrow was the Cáceres budget plenary session, we would vote no”

First notification. When the local spokesperson for United We Can (UP), Consolación López Balset, and Councilor Ildefonso Calvo were asked this morning if their acid public criticism of the management of the Cáceres Government could be considered in this way, both responded with a brief but expressive , ‘Yes’. “Until now we have kept a low profile in the media. Time had to be given to do the things that were included in the signed pact”, López Balset has detailed. He has come to say that trust is not broken, but things have changed. No more taking for granted with the UP’s favorable vote the policies and accounts that the PSOE has included in the 2022 draft budget.

“If the plenary session were tomorrow we would vote no”, the spokeswoman has assumed, who has listed one by one the breaches of the agreement with the PSOE. She maintains that the projects that were agreed between PSOE and UP are missing from the 2021 budget. For its part, among the points of the political stability pact, which must be renewed year after year, the most significant advances have been in social policy. There is no news, he stressed, of the budget increase of the Cáceres Ciudad Histórica Consortium, of the pact for employment, the catalog of needs by neighborhoods and districts, the modification of the Urban Mobility Plan (Pimus), the municipal reorganization, the improvement of services to citizens or housing.

What the representatives of United We Can in the Corporation have come to convey (only councilor Raúl Martín has also been absent) is that this time the support will not come for free. They set conditions and want guarantees that they will be met. They criticize the approval of items in the 2021 budget that are now repeated in the 2022 budget because they have not been carried out.

Consolación López mentioned, the Hispanidad bike lane, endowed with 400,000 euros and which was to connect the southeast ring road and the two stations, the train and the bus. “It’s not even up for bid,” he complains. The same happens with the connection between Montesol and Paseo Alto, for which “there is no project” and which had 150,000 euros. The new public toilets have not been built either. UP requested a network of urinals that was endowed with 150,000 euros. “We also asked to open the bathrooms that had been closed, such as the one in the Parque del Príncipe and others, but it has not been put out to tender. The most curious thing is that the PSOE boasts that it has been its achievement when it has not even been done, ”López Balset has come to explain.

Another project about which there is no news is that of safe access to schools, which should give priority to accompanying students and family members over vehicles. It was 10,000 euros. “They put it back in the new budget,” he reveals.

On the contrary, among the aspects in which the Socialist Government has taken a step forward are the hiring of eight new professionals to reinforce the IMAS as well as to provide it with greater financing. The tax review has also been agreed with tax increases such as filming or the IBI, although the problem according to Podemos is that the money that is collected is not dedicated to investments.

“The eight million loan that was requested and in which our investments are also included are yet to be applied.” UP accuses the local Executive of “lack of will and efficiency”, although it does not close any door and will keep the negotiation open to try to reach agreements if its conditions are accepted. A meeting between the two parties is scheduled for next Monday. At the moment, UP clarifies that it has had nothing to do with the first draft of the municipal accounts that has been presented.

“We’re not going to let it go. Either they put the batteries or change ours, “said López Balset. “It’s the first warning,” confirms Ildefonso Calvo. He maintains that the degree of compliance has been minimal.

In the first negotiation table, UP will propose three axes on which the PSOE will have to make an effort if it wants to add the votes of the three councilors of the purple formation to its own and, in principle, that of the non-affiliated, Teófilo Amores.

UP wants advances in Culture, with the brand Cáceres, city of festivals, for which new accounts are already being considered. Claim mobility improvements. He criticizes the fact that new projects, such as the Ronda de la Pizarra, have turned their backs on pedestrians by not including a bike lane.

His main and “urgent” claim will be the connection of La Cañada with the rest of the city. They also want to put housing in the municipal debate. We can ask for a municipal office to serve the neighbors and advise them on this matter as well as a public park available to the most needy families.

Nor has it been carried out, they denounce, the placement of individual accountants in social flats that had an item of half a million. About the Cáceres Ciudad Histórica Consortium and its minimum budget. Consolación López has mentioned the lack of political will despite the change in the statutes that has recently been addressed. “As we could read in some media, the Board spends more on three days of activities for the Buddhist complex than the budget of the Consortium.”

Salaya: “We are very lucky that the plenary session will not be tomorrow”

In a first urgent assessment, after the appearance of the councilors of United We Can, the mayor of Cáceres, Luis Salaya, has acknowledged that he does not agree with the assessment made of the pact and compliance with the agreements by the purple formation. Regarding his possible negative vote on the 2022 accounts, he has summarized: “We are very lucky that the plenary session is not tomorrow.”

Salaya has stressed that there is still time to negotiate and thoroughly address the issues that most concern UP and try to make sense of an agreement that comes from the beginning of his mandate and hopes to extend it. “Sometimes UP projects its assessment too far from the government’s action. They are unrealistic with deadlines. Most of the projects are in the process of being drafted, tendered or being executed directly”, points out the councilor.

He adds that it is being fulfilled and trusts that UP “votes in favor of the municipal budget” because the city needs it. The Government is going to “review” the UP proposals and according to the mayor there will be no problems in complying with them “if they go in the same direction” as in previous years.

“It takes time to prepare the projects and put them out to tender, but we are achieving something that many municipalities do not, that the tenders are not deserted.” For Salaya, the part that is furthest behind is the municipal housing office. But he believes that more than an office is “a management model.” In Cáceres the rental price is increasing, as Podemos has denounced, “because unemployment is falling.”

Luis Salaya affirms that when PSOE and Podemos sit down to negotiate, it will be possible to verify that the connection from Montesol to Paseo Alto “will soon go out to tender.” “UP’s proposals have been prioritized,” he concludes. He justifies possible delays due to the lack of resources and personnel, since municipal investments must be combined with European projects. “If it’s because of that, blessed delay,” he sums up.