Javier Rodrigo
Pamplona (EFE) the first mayor of the town, José Hernández, 82, who is retiring after decades of service to the town where he was born.
His is the other face of politics, that of the multi-function mayor, that of the person his countrymen call to expose their problems and seek a solution among all, as in a community of neighbors. Here politics is “a surplus”, as Hernández says in an interview with EFE.
At the service of the people since 1979
Hernández, from UPN, was elected mayor in the first democratic municipal elections, in 1979, and has held this role until today, except in one legislature. That “was a town with few people” and, being one of the youngest, they proposed to him to be mayor. “And you are not going to deny yourself in your town…”, he admits.
But in May, he adds, “God willing, I’ll leave, because I’m many years old and it’s time to leave, now there are young people who can be (mayor). I am 82 years old and that is already many years, because here you have to be the mayor, the bailiff and all trades, you have to do a little bit of everything”.
When there is a problem, the neighbors call him, not on his mobile, because there is no coverage, but on his landline at home, “which is precisely why I have it.”
In Castillonuevo there are no councilors, only mayor. The plenary sessions are held in what is called “open council”, in which all those who are registered can participate with voice and vote, but “not the first day they register, but after two years, for that and for other customs that we have in the town”, he points out.
Few, but well matched
Hernández was born in this small Navarrese Pyrenean town located 78 kilometers from Pamplona. “I was born here, I don’t know where to die, but, if I can, here too,” says the mayor, who has always been a farmer: “I have defended myself, more or less, because they are not very good (cultivation) areas. I have been very comfortable, and I am, and always with enthusiasm ”.
Life in Castillonuevo has not been easy. In his case, “I was born here and I liked the job I’ve had, because I’ve had a good time, without finding out if it was boring or lonely. For someone who wasn’t born here, I imagine it will be tougher.”
They are few in the town, but well matched. Hernández points out that he has always left “the door open” for others to run for mayor, but according to his account they answered him: “No, you introduce yourself, we are all going to vote for you. In that sense, I am more than grateful.”
It has been an honor for him to be mayor for so many years in his town, a community in which politics is left on the sidelines. “Politics here, if I have to be honest and clear, is superfluous,” underlines Hernández, who explains that what it is about is “managing the people, doing the best you can, period.”
Internet, the pending subject
The mayor leaves, however, with a thorn stuck in it: “There is something that I am getting out of without achieving it, but this is already a bit of the Administration’s fault, I have to say it even if it does not taste good to them, because we do not have internet or anything, nor post for mobile or anything.
Many times they have promised to install internet and mobile coverage in the town, “but several games have passed and no one has put it to me, and in that sense I am very complaining, and I don’t care if they know it.” The next mayor “to see if he has more influence than me,” he says.
Hernández remembers the time, not so long ago, when there were eight agricultural and livestock companies in the town, but that, he laments, “has been lost because the owners are underground.”
depopulation
Castillonuevo suffers from the problem of depopulation like so many other towns in the Pyrenees, “because before they lived on livestock and mountains, but that has disappeared,” says the mayor. “Young people go to study in Pamplona and work there, and on weekends, in the towns. That is life here and throughout the area. That hasn’t changed, because they don’t put any industry nearby or anything and that has made the staff leave”, comments Hernández.
But the mayor does not lose hope: “I think that now something is going to start to change, it seems to me, because there are young people who already want to come and live in town.”
The entry Castillonuevo: when being mayor is a vocation was first published in EFE Noticias.