As expected, the team Government (CC, PP and Evelyn Alonso) refused to immediately withdraw the monument to Franco de Santa Cruzas proposed by United We Can in a motion presented at the plenary session held yesterday and in which the Corporation was urged to abide by what was collected in the Catalog of vestiges of the Government of the Canary Islands for Santa Cruz, without waiting for the Ministry of Education dictate the approval order for that document, something that, according to UP, will happen in a few days.
The UP councilor, Dolores Espinosa, recalled that since 2007 there has been a state Historical Memory Law and since 2019 a regional one, so Santa Cruz does not need to wait for a catalog of vestiges to proceed to withdraw the Francoist recognitions, including the monument of John of Avalos.
The first deputy mayor and councilor for Urban Planning, Guillermo Díaz Guerra (PP), was in charge of presenting the reasons for rejecting the motion, which in his case have to do with both the form and the substance of the catalogue, whose content defended the mayor does not share, and called “sectarian.” He insisted on the already well-known arguments that the procedure established by the Canary Islands Historical Memory Law of preparing a regional catalog has not been complied with, and not only for Santa Cruz, nor has he published the previous strategy to see what is included and what is not, or the financing for the withdrawal of elements.
Regarding the content, the mayor of the PP pointed out that “we talk about historical and artistic heritage. You are determined that the majority of the Santacruceros want to put an end to the Almeyda fountain, and the majority of the Santacruceros are represented by this government team, which does not agree with that catalog, because we believe that this fountain is an enormous asset. for Santa Cruz.
Díaz Guerra was clear in announcing that “if the Government of the Canary Islands wants to approve a catalog through the order of the Ministry of Education, this Government group, this City Council, and if it does not do so, the PP will do it in a private capacity, it will appeal that order.
The controversy of the monument to Franco de Santa Cruz
The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, supported the intervention of his government partner, although with some nuances about the catalog, of which he said that there are aspects with which he clearly agrees, hinting, without saying so openly, that he shares the idea of that the monument to Franco must be removed, as stated in the catalog of vestiges.
On the side of the things with which he does not agree, the mayor pointed out several, such as those related to certain honors and distinctions. “Some are debatable, such as Cándido García San Juan being stripped of the city’s gold medal, awarded by the PSOE in 1991, or removing the lions from the Serrador bridge, or that the Nuestra Señora de Africa Market Cooperative have to resort to the catalog, because his name is already a registered trademark, or that the architect Marrero Regalado does not deserve a roundabout in the city”.
