Odalys Padron returns to political activity at the hands of new canaries. This graduate in Physical Sciences, a law student and a career civil servant, as she defines herself, aspires to be mayor of Santa Cruz hand in hand with a party that, she says, has given her independence and whose only slogan is “obedience canary”. Her neighbors are at the center of her project. “We believe that the Santa Cruz City Council needs honest and hard-working people, and we provide that,” she asserts.
-In your political career you have passed through the PSOE, Socialists for Tenerife and now Nueva Canarias. How do you explain that trajectory?
“My political trajectory is coherence. I have never been or remained in a party that is doing things that are not correct or that is not looking out for the general interest. If he had wanted a chair, he would have stayed in those games. I have only sought to work so that citizens have a quality of life and that they are heard. I always say that I carry my head very high, because I have not stayed to have a position ”.
-Why New Canaries?
“Because it has given us independence within Santa Cruz. In addition, it brings together a series of values that are very important, such as working for all canaries. Pedro Quevedo achieved a 75% discount on plane tickets, for all the islands, and also, without having representation in the Santa Cruz City Council, negotiated so that Valleseco beach would receive three million euros. That means that it is a party that looks out for the canaries, and not only for those places where it is represented”.
-What differentiates Nueva Canarias from the rest of the parties?
“The key word is Canarian obedience. We do not have to look at Madrid and ask for permission. We decide what the Canaries want and need, while other parties have to submit to what Madrid deems most important, and for Madrid we are not important”.
-What is the Nueva Canarias project for Santa Cruz?
“The first thing is that Santa Cruz is clean, an effective, real cleanup. The second thing is that social services are accessible to all people and all week long, I mean that there must be social services in the afternoons, on weekends, and in each neighborhood we need them to be available as well. In security we bet on a neighborhood police. And in relation to this, we believe that it is a tremendous mistake that the Police station is transferred to the Urbanism building. We bet on taking it to the building of the old Flex mattress factory, which can be adapted and also has a quick exit”.
-They have also presented a project for a natural treatment plant…
“It is a very important project for us, because the houses in the Buenos Aires area have depreciated due to the presence of the treatment plant, and the health of the residents is being affected. We are committed to a natural treatment plant with plants, there are examples in many places. That would mean that a leisure area could be placed in the upper part, there is no smell, there is no discharge into the sea, and the water that can be drunk is reused”.
-What do you miss in the current government team?
“That they don’t work. They are only for macroprojects, and they don’t look after the neighbors, they don’t listen to them. How is it possible that they make a roundabout and not put a pedestrian crossing. And then something very important that we see with the other candidates is that when the Cabildo decides to underestimate Santa Cruz, with only 26 euros per inhabitant, while municipalities governed by the PSOE, such as Fasnia, receive 1,290 euros, the question is where there was Patricia Hernández, Carlos Tarife, Ramón Trujillo or Enrique Arriaga. And what about the latter is already firecracker, saying that he defends Santa Cruz and votes those budgets in the Cabildo. So I put both the government team and the opposition in the same bag, because I do not see a strong job done by it that has forced the government team to work ”.
-Do you have red lines when making an agreement?
“We are clear that we have to see what the neighbors say once the elections are held, we will see. Until now we do not want to position ourselves in this, since the important thing right now is to work and to be known. We settle for the neighbors knowing who we are and knowing our backpacks and the capacities we have”.
