Josefa Mesa faces a challenge next 28M: for the first time she will lead the electoral list of the PSOE in one of the most reliable municipal granaries of Tenerife’s socialism for decades, Guía de Isora, a municipality that “is in fashion”, she emphasizes.
-The news rules and this week Héctor Gómez, the new Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, an Isorano that you know very well, is in the news.
“Yes, we worked side by side for years in the City Council and we are happy and very proud, because it is a well-deserved appointment for the work, effort and sacrifice that Héctor Gómez puts into everything.”
-On Tuesday the first Justice Office of the Canary Islands was presented in your municipality. With what expectations does this pilot project start?
“We are delighted that they have selected us, because it is fair that this experience begins in a municipality in the South. It represents an advance, since it will prevent citizens from having to travel to Santa Cruz or Arona to carry out certain procedures”.
-The 28M elections will be the first in which he appears as the head of the PSOE list [la lista de 2019 la lideró Pedro Martín] in one of the historical strongholds of Canarian socialism. How do you deal with them?
“With great desire and enthusiasm, because it is a challenge to lead a municipality like Guía de Isora, which we want to continue promoting after the progress of recent years. We must continue working on the needs that we are detecting. Guía de Isora faces its second renaissance”.
-What priorities are set for the next four years, if you continue at the head of the City Council?
“We must respond to needs in terms of public infrastructure, such as the residence for the elderly, which is entering its final phase, a public parking project that is about to go to tender, an urban park in Piedra Hincada, sanitation works that will mark a before and after in the region that will allow us to rescue water for agriculture and the connection of our coastline through accessible walks”.
-The residence for the elderly accumulates a considerable delay. When will it be finished?
“This is the definitive impulse and with it the part of electricity and the equipment will be finished. The Cabildo has told us that by the end of the year the works will be finished”.
-Guía de Isora has been a municipality that has opted for controlled tourism development based on a quality hotel facility. What projects will materialize in the coming years?
“They are long-term, although they are progressing at a good pace, and they will be very careful with the environment, integrated into the landscape. We want to continue in the line of very slow growth, but of quality. There are two more advanced projects, Costa San Juan and Villa Erques. The urbanizations will begin this year”.
-There are families that are having a hard time in Guía de Isora, as in other areas of the South. What do the municipal social services detect in terms of demand for aid?
“After the pandemic, unemployment rates have dropped a lot. We try to compensate all these needs through employment agreements as well. Because what people want is decent work that does not make them dependent on any type of help, although Social Services are support for families with the greatest difficulties. Right now we detect a need for labor by construction and hotel companies”.
-For years Guía de Isora has projected an image of a municipality that takes care of culture, with proposals as successful as MiradasDoc…
“The commitment to culture is essential, because it makes us better people, more reflective and critical. But this investment also becomes a pole of attraction for people who come and consume in the municipality, so it is still another form of promotion”.
-And within those projects, Easter stands out on these dates, the main act of the Isoran Holy Week…
“It is something unique, it has grown over the years and attracts, between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday, thousands of people and numerous artists who develop ephemeral works in the streets of the town, where the main element is the flower. But there is also music, theatre, dance, photography… You have to see it and enjoy it”.
