The Santa Cruz City Council today celebrates an extraordinary session of the plenary session with which the current mandate begins and with which the new Regulation will also be launched, which introduces novelties in its operation. The main modification has to do with the opposition groups, which may have full-time councillors, which will entail receiving a fee, or the residents may intervene in plenary session by presenting initiatives, or directly when the issues to be discussed concern them. affect directly.
Appearances, defense times for motions and the obligation that at least half of the questions be answered out loud by the councilors questioned are also regulated.
Thus, with regard to the fact that the opposition may have released councilors, point two of article 16 of the Regulations, referring to political groups, establishes that “spokespersons or, failing that, a councilor appointed by political groups without government responsibilities, they will have the right to exercise their position on a full-time basis with remuneration equivalent to that of a delegated councilor”.
This point will be applicable to the PSOE and Vox in this mandate, which make up the opposition.
In addition, “without prejudice to the provisions of section 2 and also at the proposal of the corresponding political group, when it has at least six members, another of the councilors may hold their position part-time, on a part-time basis. If the group has nine or more members, there will be two councilors who will be able to exercise their position with the same partial dedication regime. This leaves the PSOE with the possibility of having at least one full-time councilor, the one who acts as spokesperson, and two others who will have part-time, as they have ten councillors. In the case of Vox, its spokesperson may have exclusive dedication.
Another novelty has to do with the number of motions that will be presented by each municipal group. Until now, the groups could present as many motions as councilors they had in plenary, and with the change they will be able to present half the number of councilors that each group has.
The times to debate the motions are also touched, so that the interventions of the political groups will be carried out, on a regular basis, in two turns of six and three minutes respectively.
Regarding the questions, each municipal group may present as many as there are councilors in plenary session and it is in the way they are answered where the main modification is introduced, since “at least half must be answered orally in plenary session.
In this case, interventions will be limited to a maximum of four minutes divided into two turns, in which only the person asking the question and the person answering it may intervene.
Neighbors
In application of the new regulations for citizen participation, which came into force this year, the plenary session is adapted so that residents can participate directly in it. Thus, they will be able to present proposals directly to be debated, as long as they are supported by 10% of the residents. In any case, the agreement of the plenary session will be adopted following a legality report from the General Secretariat, as well as from the General Intervention in all those cases in which the initiative affects rights and obligations of economic content of the City Council. The initiatives may incorporate a popular consultation proposal.
Citizen entities may also request a presentation before the plenary or the respective Commission, in relation to any matter included in the agenda, in whose administrative processing they have intervened. In the same way, interventions may be requested individually, in matters on the agenda that affect them.
