Tomorrow Tuesday will mark the second anniversary of the constitution of our New City Hall and the ensuing appointment of the Mayor. We minted a new name for the coalition of four political parties that wanted a change and assume new challenges; the name was the “Government of the New Majority”. Sitges voted for a new majority capable of putting an end to the period of deranged management practices, the end result was that Sitges became one of the municipalities with the highest debt burden in the entire country.
Those first two years in power were, as you all know, very tough and difficult. It was very difficult because managing a City Hall with a debt burden of 67 million Euros requires high doses of accurate financial engineering and a solid managerial capacity. Tough years, the “inheritance” we received forced us to take unpleasant measures in every economic area of the City Council: companies, organizations, workers and finally, taxpayers.
During those two years of municipal government, we never fled from the spotlight or ever tried to hide from voters. We had to take drastic decisions to veer away from the disastrous management of the previous government that mortgaged the City Hall for many years to come.
And the decisions taken, even considering that were difficult and tough, also proved to be strictly necessary and convenient. Now, after two years of municipal management, we can show the first favorable results in many years: we extinguished the debt of 22 million that we found when we won, we achieved net savings of 4 million Euros, and payment terms for municipal suppliers went from 24 months two years ago to 4 months now. We are dealing here with positive figures, but in no way decisive, since we still have a bank debt amounting to 53 million Euros, so we are forced to implement policies of financial contention and accurate financial management.
The first two years of this term – governed by the correction of deficiencies – served us to set the foundations of the recuperation project that we started to apply. We were dealing with the four core ideas of the term’s Governance Plan: A Sitges that belongs to the people, Tourism as the driving force of our rebirth, Respect for the environment and our heritage and the Implementation of new economic models.
In fact, such four core ideas were the guiding force behind City Hall politics during the last months, and appeared in different initiatives that in many cases will be quite important. We must mention here the impending opening of the new university of performing arts in Sitges (Institute of the Arts Barcelona), that came to town thanks to the efforts of the government of the New Majority; the implementation of the Soup Kitchen, that satisfies the urgent needs of an important group of people; the imminent start of the refurbishment and renovation works affecting Santiago Rusiñol Library; the creation of Carnet Blau or Blue Card, that offers social services to the needy and that counts with 800 users; or the renovation of Cau Ferrat and Museu Maricel, totally insuring the protection and conservation of our architectonic heritage, in contrast with the horrendous project promoted by the previous government.
At the same time, the year 2013 was ripe to alleviate tax pressure: we reduced the price of urban transportation and in 2014, as we announced, we will cut garbage fee in half and gain tax by 45%.
As I said, we are going through difficult times, but there’s also a ray of hope as ascertained in the first results of our policies for the promotion of economic development, social support and environmental protection. We inaugurated a new governmental culture in which participation is not an empty word, as illustrated in the Public Audiences, here everybody has the opportunity to participate, ask, suggest, criticize and even scream to the point of loosing composure. We have a lot of work to do, but the most important of all is that we are anxious to do it and that we are also hopeful. Let’s keep working!
