Santoña (EFE).- The new mayor of Santoña, Jesús Gullart, has acknowledged that he has the same “illusion” as a boy who, from a young age, trains in the soccer team of his “loves” and goes up through the ranks until he makes his debut with the first team, which in this case for him was the mayor’s office of the town where he was born.
For eight years Gullart has led Santoñeses, an independent group of residents who share “diverse ideologies”, but who are united by the objective of improving “the day-to-day life of the town”.
Already, evolved into a political party, Santoñeses won the last 28M municipal elections and ended more than 40 years of alternation between PSOE and PP in the Santoña City Council.
In an interview with EFE, Gullart affirms that it has been “very complicated” to break this dynamic, but he believes that the secret is based on offering an alternative for change focused directly “on the residents and on solving their direct needs.”
As soon as he entered the office, his first measure was to sign a municipal proclamation that decreed the temporary closure of the street in the neighborhood of his childhood to celebrate the San Juan festivities, which caused “jokes” among his friends for the way he was released in office.
However, he assures that this anecdote does not overshadow a month of “intense” work and filming to adapt the internal functioning of the City Council towards a model, in his opinion, more productive, and without neglecting stagnant administrative procedures.
“We have found ourselves facing the summer without contracting basic services that should have been closed for months, such as beach cleaning, seagull control or the electricity bill,” Gullart pointed out.
A pact with the PP forged from the opposition
After the municipal elections, Santoñeses and PP signed a pact that facilitates a majority government with ten of the 17 councilors available in the municipal area.
An agreement that, in the opinion of the mayor, was forged in the last four years due to “team” work from the municipal opposition and that has emerged in a joint project of “harmony” among all the members.
Now that the PP leads the Government of Cantabria and about the possibility of the same thing happening in Spain after Sunday’s elections, Gullart has stated that he is “not very friendly” with this type of “legends” who predict better results for municipalities that share the same political color.
“Santoña is a municipality in Cantabria and it will exercise its rights and demand actions and improvements whoever governs,” the mayor has ruled.
What goals do you have?
Recovering basic services, increasing the number of places and night hours of the Local Police or improving garbage collection and street cleaning, especially in the summer due to the increase in population, are some of the objectives that the new government team has set for the next four years.
In addition, within the “major” projects, efforts will be made to convert the Casa de Albo building into an integrated center for the elderly or provide primary schools with a permanent nurse during school hours.
All of this together with the creation of a deterrent car park for vehicles at the entrance to Santoña, the extensive remodeling of the municipal sports facilities or the development of the Destination Tourism Sustainability Plan.
first setbacks
For Gullart, the appearance of graffiti on the Faro del Caballo tower, just two months after the completion of the remodeling works in the area, makes it necessary to study the possibility of installing “deterrent” and “sanctioning” video surveillance cameras to stop vandalism.
A “problem” that, in the opinion of the mayor of Santoña, also extends to other parts of the urban center and has a negative impact on the general image of the municipality.
Regarding the works of the Santoña subfluvial, paralyzed since 2016 and belonging to the cleanup plan for the marshes promoted by the Ministry for Ecological Transition, Gullart has detailed that he is unaware of the situation and is waiting to receive the drafting of the report of the new project to build another tunnel parallel to the failed one.