It has been a busy week and I have not had much chance to sit down with Candido.
I had a short surgery this morning and it is a bank holiday here tomorrow and as usual people will take an extended weekend holiday.
I will try and get hold of him before the end of next week to sort out the house numbers, the Police and some of the other points.
For those who are not interested in the general stuff and to save you time the best bit is in the last paragraph!
The latest Pleno meeting was held today at 1200 in the Town Hall. A full turn out of all our parties councillors, one from PSOE but Alberto (the P.P. councillor) was absent. It transpired that Alberto had tendered his resignation and the one seat held by P.P. would be filled by the next on their list at the next Pleno. The issue of Alberto's resignation was the first item on the agenda. He had apparently had to resign from the council to concentrate on his work. Second issue was the final approval for the Sports Centre and finally was the approval of the figures for the population of the municipality which, I am sure they said, was over 3,000.
There were quite a number of members of the public in the Pleno room and, I think, to try and impress them the PSOE lady councillor made herself quite a nuisance by asking many questions seeking to highlight failures of the present administration but singularly failed to do so, just wasting over an hour!
After the meeting we adjourned to the bar (as usual). At first I thought I was not going to get time with Candido as he was being buttonholed by the Director of the school in Zurgena. It transpires that they have been trying to build a new school for about 3 years. The land (3,000 sq metres) has been purchased and, together with a donation of another 3,000 sq metres from Dizu, the land is available but, permission from the Diputacion, has not yet been received.
Once I got Candido's ear I complained that I had over the past few weeks not been able to speak to him and that, as the only reason I agreed to stand was to enable information of the Councils activities to be made available to the ex pat community, I was rather aggrieved (pissed off actually) to have this situation. He apologised and promised that he would ensure I could see him any time I called into the office in future. He maintained it was only due to an excessively busy period dealing with grants etc. We will see.
I then asked when we were going to sort out the Police. He said that I should make sure he and I set aside a time and date the week after next to discuss our options about how to manage the Police.
I then asked about the house numbering. The streets had been named but no numbers allocated. It transpires that this was a mistake on both our parts. He thought that, when I had rung up to complain about the lady chiseling off existing number tiles and sticking others on, people did not want their house numbers changed. In fact of course it was that people only wanted to put their own numbers on their properties. He agreed that over the next week or so we would assign numbers to all the properties and through our contacts (probably NHW coordinators) help to inform everyone and also to feed back to the Town Hall the owners of each property.
I then asked about the funding for the road in Palaces as it was getting in a really bad state. He informed me that the money is in the Town Hall for this project and it has been approved by the Diputacion. All we can do is await their action in issuing the contract. It is apparently their responsibility so there is little more the Council can do but they will try and gently push it.
I asked about the issue of the inventory going onto a CD for the issuance of a copy to various interested parties. He informed me that he had made a rash mistake. As I suspected the issue of Data Protection is overriding his ability to do so. We agreed that we should continue with the current method of having individuals submit requests for their details to be checked by either myself or Salvador. Salvador is hoping to receive the final detail he needs from the solicitors in the next 15 to 20 days and that when that is done it would be a good time for me to check the last of my list as it should be totally complete then.
I asked if we would be able to issue any building licences for small projects. He asked what I meant and I said that many people wanted to complete pools or outbuildings. They said that these unfortunately would still have to await clearance due to the Junta's intransigence. I was told that small projects which did not need a full building permit such as glazing in existing structures could be permitted and that in these cases the Town Hall would ask for simple plans and estimates in order to approve works.
I asked about the football pitch in La Alfoquia as I had had a number of complaints of noise nuisance and disturbance late at night. He informed me that there would be no late night football. That it was only in use by ad hoc groups and the Town Hall would try and ensure it was used reasonably. The entrance and main passage of people using the pitch would move to the rear when the sports centre is built.
Another issue which I had been asked to raise was the council's policy of dealing with feral cats. He laughed and said that he had always thought the only issue was wild dogs. It was the policy of most councils to engage a company from Almeria to control the level of dogs and cats in the municipality but that this process had stopped some years ago. They had no policy and if it was considered a problem we should raise it firstly with the Environment people in the Junta before we consider another policy.
The best bit came at the end when I was told that, the first of the appealed cases, to reach the high court in Granada had found unequivocally in the Town Halls favour. That covers the Prodelor houses in La Alfoquia. They are now the first to be fully legal as far as the courts are concerned. The court also ordered the Junta to pay all the costs. I suggested that if they see another case go this way they (the Junta) would not wish to keep losing money and face. I was told that that is what any reasonable person would do but they are dealing with public money and might not have the same attitude. However with the success of the Prior's case and now this first one on appeal it seems the council's predictions are coming true.
As usual any queries please email me at jiminysimpson@gmail.com
Failed to see Candido again today but managed to get answers to some issues,
1. A number of people had had a visit from the Polizia Local recently with a request to attend at the Court of 1st Instance in Huercal Overa on Monday next. The paper referred to a Cedula de Citacion. I managed to ascertain that this is a case which is looking at building irregularities and the court requires all those who may have an interest in the case to identify themselves. I am led to believe that this is a similar process to many types of court cases in Spain. So if you ever receive a paper from the Polizia Local which referes to a Cedula to Citacion you will have an idea what it is about.
2. Again a number of people had received letters from the Ministerio de Economia y Hacienda.
This is the office which handles the taxation of property and land. I discovered that the current Director of this office had recently been replaced, which was a benefit to our Town Hall who had had great difficulty in dealing with this man. It transpires that when we as a council agreed in Pleno to raise the IBI taxes ourselves without having to go through the above office, they blocked it. there had recently been some very angry discussions between Salvadore, Candido and this Director when we found out that although they had blocked our ability to sort out the IBI they had authorised another council , who applied after us to go ahead.
In relation to the individuals who had received the letters, they had gone to their solicitors who had been in touch with the Ministry, who had asked for all sorts of documentation which included stuff relevant to IBI. I had already told these people about the fact that we could not supply that as the Ministry was preventing us from doing so. on discussing his today the suggestion was made that anyone being asked for information relating to IBI, from the Ministry, should contact the Town Halls secretary. It would be best if their solicitors contacted Isabella who can inform them that the Ministry are asking for documentation that they know cannot be provided. They can then just leave those cases until some later date.
3. Anyone applying for a dog licence and needing a British criminal record check can just supply the english version which will be translated by the Town Hall.
All other issues will again have to wait until next week.
Tried yesterday and today to catch anyone in the Town hall and, with the exception of Andreas and Maribel, the place was empty. I was also informed that Isabella is off until next week and Candido and Salvador were just popping in and out. I will try again tomorrow but it looks like another week is going to pass me by.
Sorry.
Sorry folks another week with little to report! Despite calling into the Town Hall on 3 occasions I kept missing both Salvadore and Candido. I will try each day until I get hold of them.
I did ask each time whether any response had been received from the solicitors about the Certificates of Expediente and the answer is still no. I was told that it was getting more urgent to get this information, not only for those awaiting a Certificate, but also for the inventory, as Salvadore needs to include this information on the inventory.
I tried to catch Salvador to resolve the last quarter of my list (for checking against the inventory) and also for ascertaining the situation regarding the street names for people whose streets are not yet named. I also have a number of queries regarding what is actually shown, on the inventory, as being on certain plots. This again is an issue I can only check out through Salvadore. I have also not got an agreement yet on the process of numbering of the houses on all the new streets.
We did get better understanding for those people losing land to the new road and how the process, for them, works. This is not quite as bad as was first thought. The second stage of the road building (the stage from Cucador to La Concepcion) is due to start in June/July.
I was able to have my 3rd surgery but of course this just leads to further issues which we need to resolve and we have Easter closely coming up on us.
I am keeping a running sheet with all the outstanding issues and when I get the issue answered I knock it off my list. As you can imagine, at the moment and due to not having our Thursday evening meetings, most recent items are still outstanding.
