At a press conference, the Councilor for Finance, Antonio Ignacio Martínez-Real, welcomed the decision to award the city's gold and silver shields, respectively, to the Choir and Dance Group and the Atalaya Club.
The councilor noted that "the Plenary Session has recognized the important work of the Francisco Salzillo Choir and Dance Group by awarding it the city's gold coat of arms for its 75th anniversary. They are great ambassadors for Cieza around the world; thanks to them, we have a very important folklore festival, and they promote the culture and traditions of our city."
The councilor also referred to the recognition of the activities of the Atalaya Ateneo de la Villa Club after its 50th anniversary. "This group, founded in 1967 fighting for freedom and democracy and informing workers about their labor rights, has developed a wide range of cultural activities in the Plaza de los Carros, including concerts, films, book presentations, etc., which have fostered the culture of our city and revived important traditions primarily related to esparto grass. It is undoubtedly a deserving recipient of the Silver Shield."
Martínez-Real believes that "Cieza cannot be understood without the contributions of these two groups, who have also promoted two important museums in our city: the Folklore Museum and the Esparto Museum." For this reason, the municipal spokesperson asserts that "I have no choice but to express my rejection of the attitude displayed by the Cieza PP, which attempts to discredit this recognition of the Atalaya Club, simply citing ideological reasons different from its own, demonstrating a sectarian nature that further blurs this party, which is becoming less pluralistic every day and refuses to recognize a group that has been recognized by European institutions, by the central government, and even by the regional PP administration, which recently visited the Esparto Museum. Once again, the Cieza PP is left out of the consensus due to its sectarian nature."
Referring to other matters from the February plenary session, Martínez-Real criticized the Popular Party (PP) for presenting a motion on life imprisonment, "transferring a debate to the city councils that serves no purpose, since Rajoy has announced that he will propose expanding the crimes punishable by that sentence; in other words, whatever the city councils say, Madrid will follow their lead. The real purpose is, on the one hand, to hide the genuine failure in terms of citizen security and the decline in the number of officers, which in 2011 in Spain reached 155,285 between Civil Guards and National Police, and, in 2017, there are 141,740. For example, in the Region of Murcia, in 2011, there were 2,066 Civil Guards, and in 2016, there were 1,958." The local government councilor accuses the People's Party of "engaging in electioneering on this issue, which Ciudadanos also joined by presenting a similar amendment, abandoning its previous position in favor of repealing the life sentence. It should be clarified that it is not true that this is a revisable life sentence, since the sentence is never remitted and the offender's criminal record is never expunged."
On another note, Antonio Martínez-Real argued his rejection of the PP's initiative to include the pedestrianization of three streets in the POS: San José, Santa María, and Floridablanca, "since, obviously, we cannot support such a request when it is the residents of Cieza who will decide which projects are included in the POS through citizen participation, as the POS itself required in 2017. Furthermore, the characteristics and requirements of the new Works Plan are still unknown, demonstrating once again that the PP makes mistakes when dealing with local issues, which is why it has to take refuge in the motions sent to it from Genova."
For the councilor, "the government's desire to build consensus and the work carried out were evident, which led CCCi to withdraw its two motions on reducing vehicle taxes and creating the Economic and Social Council, and Ciudadanos to withdraw a ordinance regulating parking permits for people with disabilities, as the draft of the aforementioned ordinance had already been completed and submitted to the councilors for input."
Finally, the Plenary adopted the agreement to establish measures to reduce water consumption in public buildings following a request from the non-affiliated councilors, "who, during the plenary session, were informed of the progress of the work on campaigns to raise awareness about water consumption, campaigns that will be presented in the coming days, and were also informed of everything done so far, which is yielding positive results, with water consumption having been reduced by 24,000 m³ in municipal facilities over the last 6 years."
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