The spokesperson for Cs Xàbia, Enrique Escrivá, has affected "the lack of dialogue and predisposition" of the local government when it comes to introducing proposals in the municipal budget, which will be put to a vote in the ordinary plenary session this coming Thursday.
As Escrivá has stated, "these budgets that have been transferred to us are like a plate of lentils, - you either take them or leave them" -, with which they have once again turned their backs on the opposition parties but also on the neighbors , "without allocating a single euro so that the xabieros can get involved and decide directly on actions of the Town hall that affect them, through participatory budgets, such as when choosing the location to install new bike racks or, to decide on the trees on Calle Cristo del Mar.
"Meanwhile, in other municipalities such as Pedreguer, they already have ten editions of participatory budgets."
There they have invested a total of 1,3 million euros in initiatives promoted by citizens, "practically the same amount as all the real investment budgeted, in principle, for 2022 in Xàbia, which will only be for the pool and other minor works , so it should not be so difficult to make participatory budgets, what is missing is political will, "added the mayor. In the same way, the xabiero spokesman has regretted that the government team has "closed the door to collect contributions from the opposition, taking us out of the common roadmap that Xàbia needs to come out of the situation in which we find ourselves with force."
According to Escrivá "these accounts are left behind projects and historical demands of Xàbia", such as "aid for transport to university students and training cycles, which from Cs Xàbia we have been asking for since the beginning of the legislature, or large projects emblematic such as the Central Cinema or the second municipal sports pavilion, which we see do not appear in the 'Letter to the wise men from the remaining treasury' or the municipal decentralization with the opening of the empty premises of Cristo del Mar or the Auxiliary Office of the Arenal.
At this point, the mayor has considered that these accounts do not include initiatives with which the City Council can opt for part of the Next Generation European funds, for example, for improvement interventions in some neighborhoods, in what for Escrivá is "another missed opportunity for the urban centers of Xàbia to complete their modernization and contribute to creating a harmonized, more friendly, dynamic and attractive environment, to be one more claim of the municipality”.
In addition, Escrivá has missed the fact that there is not a "clear and decisive commitment", with nominative items to monitor the state of the Posidonia oceanica on our coast. Something that could be done “through the Fundación del Oceanogràfic or the Institute of Coastal Ecology, and that would allow us to continue taking steps on the path towards protecting the richness and biodiversity of our marine environment”.
Likewise, the mayor has indicated that from the local government "they have missed the opportunity to tackle the problems of urban public transport that we xabieros historically suffer", without allocating money to carry out a detailed study of the needs of urban public transport in Xàbia , “that gives us solutions to put an end to the outdated service that we currently have, relying on the information provided by the Mobility Plan, to lay the foundations and find the key to offer an urban bus service with adapted routes, schedules and frequencies to the needs of the residents of urban centers and urbanizations”, Escrivá pointed out.
In the same way, the mayor has pointed out as another of the shortcomings that these accounts present, that an agreement has not been established with the local taxi sector, which offers 24-hour service. For this reason, Escrivá has proposed to financially help the taxi drivers of the municipality with the night service they provide, during the weeknights of the low season, since it hardly represents any type of income, "in the case of a sector with which it is necessary to do justice, and that he has been available to the xabieros in the hardest moments of the pandemic, without having received a single euro of aid from the City Council coffers, and that he deserves to be counted on for the public function they carry out during the low-season weeknights, which often costs them money out of pocket.”
Lastly, the spokesman for xabiero has criticized the fact that the only major work planned in the budget investments is the municipal swimming pool, "which exposes the lack of management as the main pending issue of this local government" which, according to Escrivá, "has bet the bulk of the investments to the remainder of the City Council's cash, but on the other hand they still do not have a roadmap of when many of those projects affected by the remainder will be executed”, as is the case with the future industrial estate. For what the mayor has pointed out, "rather it seems that they have now written the 'letter to the wise men', and in the meantime, we continue to have a key work for the future of Xàbia, which is still on standby, such as the construction of the Auditorium and other big projects that we know nothing about, such as the second sports pavilion or the Central Cinema”.
