The mayor turns to the Jemad to keep municipal funds in the old barracks while looking for alternatives to deposit them
Ten months after the expiration of the agreement by which the Municipal Archive occupies the entire front pavilion of the Artillery Park, the mayor, Noelia Arroyo, continues to seek interlocutors and formulas to convince the Ministry of Defense and avoid eviction. The deadline is April 14, 2023 and the first mayor maintains her determination to obtain an extension, even if it is for a period of only two years. In fact, as she indicated to LA VERDAD, that is the proposal with which she is currently working, while promoting the City Museum project next to the Roman Amphitheater, indicated by her team as the place destined to host all the documentation in the future.
In the event that Defense yields, it will not be easy to organize a transfer that would last months. In the Archive there are documents of 775 years, since the collection began in the 13th century. Only counting up to the XIX there are more than 30,000 documents. In many cases, these are delicate pieces that must be protected and be in places with strict temperature conditions and absence of humidity. Likewise, there are no less than 30,000 boxes from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It should be noted that much of the material collected in recent times comes from donations.
In addition, a file must always remain in order for consultation and, to date, the City Council lacks adequate buildings for that purpose.
The Municipal Archive was located in the Artillery Park in 2004, despite the fact that the transfer agreement was signed in 1998, which was when Defense dispensed with that active military barracks. The City Council spent six years and 2.3 million euros to carry out the necessary reform works and fit out the office areas on the ground floor. The agreement established a 25-year agreement, with a revocation clause if the Ministry needed the property even sooner. In another point of the document an extension is established up to 99 years. But the central government communicated in 2019 the urgency of returning the property to expand the Military Museum, which occupies almost the entire rest of the building. In fact, the Museum would have rejected funds due to the lack of a suitable place to exhibit them.
The government team got to work in 2019 when the mayor was Ana Belén Castejón. She had meetings with Defense and also a correspondence in which she warned that “we cannot do without the building” despite her interest in respecting the agreement. The objective was to renegotiate an extension of it. Arroyo is still working on that now, in collaboration with Castejón. In fact, the first mayor spoke on the subject with the chief of the Defense Staff (Jemad), Teodoro Esteban López Calderón, when the admiral came to give the Easter proclamation. According to the sources consulted, the Jemad was grateful for the confidence and very diplomatic, but made it clear that the issue of old facilities does not depend on him.
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