Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The socialist stance

At last night’s council meeting, the socialists proposed  that Charo Bañuls should use the town’s legal services to explore possible action to force the reopening of the night time emergency service. The spokesman for the opposition said that they could even consider suing the regional government for discriminating against the town.  Raúl Valerio Medina believes that the PP proposal to merely send a letter requesting the reopening is not enough.

Medina also wants the town to sign an agreement to allow bigastrense children to attend the Early Childhood Centre in Orihuela. He says this would cost no more that 20,000 euros per year which he points out is less that the 30,000 euros saved when the two liberal councillors were dismissed.

Referring to legal services, Medina says that information about the cost of these and the use made of them are being kept a secret. By his reckoning, the town is currently spending 80,000 euros per year which he says is a vast increase on the 30,000 that the socialist spent when they were in power.

Medina sought clarification about how that money was spent. He suspects that much of it went on lawsuits for example those related to the compensation for unfair dismissal of 50 council workers. He claimed that the result of taking the issue to court only served to double the amount paid to the workers.

The problem is, when politicians use the words “open” and “transparent”, they are using a different dictionary to the rest of us. In spite of the claims that the parties make about being upfront with the electorate in their manifestos, when it comes down to it, they have a change of heart and only tell us what they want us to know.   

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