The Plenary of La Laguna yesterday unanimously approved an institutional motion, based on a proposal from the Mayor’s Office with amendments from the CC and the Government group, to “study the possibility of collecting possible taxes on real estate, without social or religious use, owned by the Catholic Church or the Bishopric, in which economic activities are carried out or rent is charged for making use of them.
In addition, the agreed text is committed to “promoting jointly with the Diocese of San Cristóbal de La Laguna, within the framework of the agreements of the Government of Spain and the Spanish Episcopal Conference, the study, through the list sent by the FEMP, property registered in the municipality for the purpose of determining if there is any whose ownership was public, for the purpose of proceeding, where appropriate, to its regularization. As well as “offering the collaboration of the City Council in this recovery of assets, contracting, for this, a legal and technical report that serves to collaborate in the restitution of these assets to their legitimate owners and recover those of public domain that could be in this case , such as public squares or buildings for communal use, promoted by neighbors.
This motion was agreed in the framework of a plenary session that began with a minute of silence for the death of Javier Quintero, technician of the Sports area of the City Council; and that was marked by a lot of tension in the debate of the first points.
The Plenary also unanimously determined another motion to urge “all the banking entities that operate in our municipality to reinforce the resources to offer a face-to-face service, during all office hours, to cover the needs of users, especially the older population”, among other measures in the fight against the digital divide.
Likewise, the audit report of the Audiencia de Cuentas of the minor contracting carried out by the large Canarian city councils in 2018 was reported, and of which the Avante spokesman, Santiago Pérez, highlighted. Likewise, he criticized that in said exercise, corresponding to the previous Corporation, “98.9% of the contracts awarded by the City Council were minor”, when it is a contract that “must be used exceptionally”.
Another tense moment of the debate would come with the point at which the appearance of the mayor was requested by CC to give an account of the works carried out in his home and that was not carried out, since, after consulting the secretary about whether Said appearance was in accordance with the legal system, she replied that based on the norm, it was not appropriate.
The CC spokesman, Jonathan Domínguez, responded that what was intended with the petition was “to give the mayor the opportunity to explain in a coherent manner and clarify any doubts regarding what happened in the previous Plenary.”
To this, the mayor criticized that what CC wanted to bring was “a media circus”, because it was a matter of “my personal sphere” that “has nothing to do with political management”. “Here they have only come to stigmatize a mayor for a personal matter, I am not going to allow it,” he denounced.
