They protest with cries of “shame” at the refusal to move the La Huertanica shelter
“Shame”, “Take them home” or “What are you going to vote if you are all sold …”. These were the disqualifications and protests that a dozen neighbors launched yesterday in the municipal plenary session of the Murcia City Council, after the debate of a motion presented by the PP on the reception of refugee families in the La Huertanica hotel, located in the center of the city. city, and that was rejected with the votes of PSOE, Ciudadanos and Podemos. Neighbors have been demanding their transfer to another part of the municipality for weeks, claiming that the city center already has enough care centers for underprivileged groups.
The rejected popular motion, with contributions from Vox, demanded, among other issues, the search for alternative accommodation and that the Murcia City Council mediate with the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration to stop their transfer to this hotel. It is this Ministry that manages the entire refugee reception and protection system. In Murcia, it is the NGO Accem that is taking care of the foster families, who will not be there for more than a month.
In a very tense environment, with attempts to evict the ‘birdhouses’, the neighbors repeatedly interrupted the interventions of the councilors, especially PSOE, Cs and Podemos, denying that they were racist and demanding that their rights also be defended.
To Monteagudo
Neighbors, who have formed the ‘SOS Casco Histórico’ platform, criticized that they had not been informed of this project and insisted that the city center already supports enough pressure from social works, in reference to the Jesús Abandonado dining room. On several occasions, during the debate on the motion, they managed to make themselves heard, at which point they even proposed the transfer of the refugees to Monteagudo; or that a center for these people be built in another part of the municipality.
During the defense of the motion, the popular councilor Pilar Torres insisted that she had made a mistake by not counting on the neighbors to start up this center and commented that, “perhaps, it is not the right place” since the Centro- This already has “an excess supply of healthcare services.” “La Huertanica is not the most suitable,” he said.
The mayor regretted that the Ministry was limited to financing the projects without taking into account the impact on the neighbors and asked the Department of Social Services to propose “valid alternatives” among the media in her department. Also to draw up a map of personal reception assistance resources, both municipal, regional and national, to “have all the possible locations”. Finally, he proposed that he promote neighborhood participation in these projects.
Federico Aliaga will name the Infante sports pavilion
Unanimously. The political groups with representation in the City Council approved the motion presented by Podemos, PSOE and Cs to name ‘Federico Aliaga Pechovierto, Fede’ the sports hall of Infante Juan Manuel. With this, they pay tribute to the one who was, since the 90s, the promoter and coach of the women’s basketball club and who focused all his effort on the grassroots sport, the councilors explained. Federico Aliaga passed away just over a week ago. “He spent more than a quarter of a century being a benchmark on the court and off it for many players and their families.”
In yesterday’s session, the last of the year, it was also unanimously approved to start the procedures for the granting of honorary titles to several ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’ of the municipality. Only Vox voted against granting the title of Adoptive Daughter to the writer from Huelva based in Murcia, Carmen Montero Medina. The rest of the decorations will fall, as Favorite Children, on Carlos del Amor and Ismael Galiana; and that of Adoptive Daughter in the actress Pepa Aniorte Villalgordo. In addition, Gold Medals of the municipality will be awarded to Cáritas Diocesana, the Spanish Association for the Fight Against Cancer and the Official College of Nursing of the Region of Murcia.
The Vox spokesperson, José Ángel Antelo, the only formation that supported the motion, managed to get the popular mayor to agree to include other points, such as the City Council mediating with the Ministry to paralyze the refugee center of the old La Huertanica hotel.
Torres had to listen to harsh criticism from councilors Paqui Pérez, from Cs, Esther Nevado, from the PSOE, and Ginés Ruiz, from Podemos. The three agreed to show their rejection of the fact that the mayor had done the job for Vox by presenting this motion and creating a problem where it did not exist. “These people are politically persecuted and this is a place of first reception, something that has been done for years in other spaces and there have never been problems and they have never created them,” said Pérez. Nevado regretted that it was not a motion to improve the system, “but to create a confrontation with the neighbors; it has xenophobic and racist arguments: you are the shame of the European right ”. Ruiz reproached Torres for accusing this group of creating insecurity and unhealthy conditions in the neighborhood (one of the arguments of Vox and the neighbors) “without being true.”
The Municipal Housing Plan will be approved next year
The motion to encourage access to housing for young Murcian, presented by the popular councilor Antonio Navarro, was finally approved with the alternative proposal of Citizens in which the councilor responsible for Housing promised to approve the Municipal Housing Plan in 2022 This program, which would be the first for Murcia, will serve the different groups, after a “rigorous analysis” of the situation and the state of the housing stock. Cs, Podemos and PSOE voted in favor.
In the debate, Navarro highlighted how difficult it is for young people to access a home and demanded, among other issues, the promotion of housing cooperatives for young people and the transfer of public land destined for first homes for this group. He did not accept, like Vox, the alternative because they said that it diluted “in general” the needs of young people.
The Local Council of Commerce will meet in January
The Councilor for Commerce and Markets, José Vicente Larrosa, announced yesterday that last week he sent the communications to celebrate the Local Council of Commerce. He responded in this way to the motion of the mayor of Vox, Inmaculada Ortega, in which he reproached him for the fact that three months had passed since he promised to convene this body and regretted that he had not done so yet, despite the motions that the socialists had presented claiming it when they were in opposition. “And while they announce plans and actions to energize the sector that are not done, they do not summon it either because it is too big for them or because they are afraid to confront the merchants,” said Ortega.
Both Larrosa and his government partner and former Commerce Minister, Juan Fernando Hernández, reminded him that there was a website to promote the trade, as well as virtual visits, discount fairs and other actions to boost the sector.
The plenary session urges that LGBTI + diversity talks be given at ESO
Yesterday’s plenary session gave the green light, with the vote against Vox and the abstention of the PP, for the councils of Social Rights, Health and Youth and Equality to launch a program for the development of LGTBI + Diversity talks for young people and who study at any level of ESO and Baccalaureate. The proposal, defended by the mayor of Podemos Clara Martínez Baeza, also included a call to the government team to install (as approved in the May plenary session) a monolith in the ‘Chinese Garden’ with the inscription Plaza de la Diversidad and LGTBI rights, as well as a pole for the flag of this group.
In her support, the socialist Esther Nevado stressed that “rights that are not defended are lost”; and Paqui Pérez, from Cs, said that they will always watch over “the freedom to love and to decide who to be.” Antelo, from Vox, said that the talks were “an excuse to indoctrinate” young people and to maintain “chiringuitos of votes.”
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