Bernhard Feiner is the candidate of Podemos Xàbia for the mayor's office. Although he was born in Bavaria (Germany), he has been living in Xàbia for 24 for years. Feiner has a degree in Anglo-Germanic Philology and has been an English teacher at the IES of Benissa and nº1 of Xàbia and currently Head of Studies of the Official School of Languages of Dénia. Married and with two daughters, he defines himself as a man who can not sit idly by when he sees the need to act.
The candidate of Podemos has answered the questionnaire made by Jávea.com to all candidates for mayor of Xàbia.
- Why did you make the decision to top the list of Podemos and stand for elections?
We have been working on actions to improve things in Xàbia for about 3 years. All have had a very favorable echo in society, some have been put into practice, but many of our initiatives have not even received a response from the public. Town hall. That is why all of us, in the Círculo Activo de Podemos, were convinced that we had to present a list to enter the plenary session and be part of the decision-making process. In several meetings we agreed on a single mayoral candidate. Because I? Maybe because he's handsome, maybe because he's nice, or smart, hahaha... I don't know. We will have to ask my colleagues in the Circle.
- How do you describe the team that accompanies you?
We have a very, very varied candidacy, so we form a perfect team. We have students and retirees, more women than men, of various nationalities, of all kinds of professions. We have professors, officials and freelancers, that is, a specialist for almost all aspects of life, and a very high academic level: 17 of 24 candidates have a university degree.
- What priority action does Xàbia need?
I think the main thing is to protect the true 'Treasure of Xàbia', the beauty of its nature. Stop the speculation, stop seeing the construction of new housing as the main engine of the municipality, because in addition, when urbanization is done with 15 chalets, the vast majority of local builders can not compete for this type of work. We will encourage the rehabilitation of existing homes. One day we woke up to the news that the General Plan was going to be approved four days later, without anyone knowing how it would finally look. Unfortunately, this new General Plan is not very ambitious with the protection of the environment, provides for 300 new homes per year - something we consider totally unnecessary - and almost 3 million square meters of developable land, including the La Guardia pine groves. The approval has made it much harder to save those pinnadas in La Guardia, but we are going to do it - or die trying.
- What is the main objective of Podemos to initiate a change in Xàbia?
We want to form a government. To participate in the decisions it is essential to have the councilors
enough If not, we will again have an absolute majority that rules over the other parties.
- Tell us about your electoral program.
Our program is a program of minimums, only realistic concrete measures, always focused on improving the lives of people and to transform Xàbia into a modern, green town for people.
In our program we have three main lines of action: Xàbia breathes, Xàbia lives and Xàbia
work In order not to stretch out, I am going to name only the most important measures in each section. The complete program is on our website https://www.podemosxabia.es/camapana-2019/.
Xàbia breathes, apart from the aforementioned braking to speculation, we need a public transport system. We are going to implement it with three measures: instead of a large bus that passes every hour and is
used by 4 travelers, there will be electric minibuses with shorter distances and a frequency of about 15 to 20
minutes, a network of electric bicycles and possibly also electric cars.
Xàbia lives: At this point we are based on the fact that it can not be that the people of Xàbia, especially the young people, can not afford to live here and have to "emigrate" to the surrounding villages. We will reduce the rent of usual houses by creating a public housing park. Once the city council has a sufficiently large park, it will be an important player in the market and may influence prices downwards.
We will also study the possibility of introducing differentiated sections of the IBI between habitual dwellings and empty dwellings or tourist rental. This will increase the supply of usual rental housing with the consequent price decrease, because the owner will be interested in renting their house as a regular residence.
Xàbia works: Here we want to carry out the remunicipalization of services to save costs, eliminate intermediary companies and subcontractors to provide and guarantee more stable and higher quality working conditions.
We also want to deseasonalise tourism with the promotion of activities related to sports, culture and agriculture. Give more scope and diffusion to triathlon. Encourage the creation of cooperatives for the use and processing of products from the land. Disseminate the use and exploitation of different renewable energies as a viable economic activity.
Creation of a quality seal of contracts to distinguish the many companies that do offer legal working conditions, so that consumers can choose between responsible companies and potential operating companies. Many of these measures are related and in combination they have additional positive effects such as, for example, if rents become cheaper, the historical center is revived, trade increases. the same
result has an effective public transport.
- What would you ask the citizens?
Let them reflect if they are going to give their vote to a party that now says that it is going to take care of the environment. When he was the one who brought us the voracious construction (and got rich with it!); or to the parties that have been governing for 15 years and say that now they are going to improve public transport or start, 3 years later, and just with the start of the pre-campaign they say that they are going to start! the much-needed reform of first Montañar; or to the 'Sleeping Beauty' type parties that wake up every 4 years from a deep sleep to ask us to vote and tell us everything they are going to do if we vote for them, only to fall asleep again the week after the elections.
Social activism is the DNA of Podemos. Therefore, without having representation in the plenary session, we have worked and done many things in the last three years, such as declaring Xàbia Zona Paraiso Fiscal Free, although the ruling parties seem not to have known that means no contract with companies that evade taxes here in Spain; or get more security in the crosswalks prohibiting parking immediately in front of them.
That citizens appreciate that we have been very active looking for solutions to the problems of the people of Xàbia and when we enter the City Council we will carry out all these changes, as has already been done for example in Madrid and Barcelona, some changes that will make Xàbia a town of the 21st century, sustainable and for normal people; an Xàbia that breathes, lives and works.
Great everything, a true wonder, especially if some of the members of Podemos put at the disposal of the most needy the houses and flats that they have and that are many and, for what is rumored, quite luxurious. This is everyone's: I'm going to do miracles, but with others. And I say it for all the political groups, not only those of Podemos, so they do not tell me that I am partisan. We can militate at least a good friend, who positively know that is a beautiful person.
Sounds good to me .