My email jiminysimpson@gmail.com

My email jiminysimpson@gmail.com

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Thursday 30th August 2012 & Zurgena Fiesta Programme

Managed to get hold of Candido in the bar this lunchtime. I have to say that I thought he looked very tired and drawn. I suspect that the difficulties of trying to manage the council with a fractured coalition is proving difficult and very tiring. I certainly would not like to try and do his job.

Following the issues raised by some of you I put numerous questions to him and the first thing to mention is that many of these issues will be addressed at a meeting of the PA councillors in September, when we will discuss the spending plan for the next financial year. The issues which I have already tabled and I will pursue in that meeting are as follows,
1. The manufacture and placing of area street name plans in each area to assist the emergency services in finding peoples homes.
2. The employment of a contracted company to maintain the Wifi system in good working order.
3. The installation of extra street lighting in areas where we need them and this would include but not restricted to Cuesta de los Pinos.
4. The tarmac surfacing of Avenida Poetas, Los Llanos and improvements to other roads in that area.
These are some of the plans I will be pursuing at that meeting which according to Candido will be held soon.

Regarding the many areas where people have complained about the street lights not working, or having problems with, I agreed to provide a list of these to Enrique (Town Hall worker) next week (after the Zurgena fiesta) for his attention. This will include  Calle Nervion, Avenida Europa, Calle Chipre area (Cuesta de los Pinos west side) Calle Juan Ramon Jiminez. If I have forgotten any please let me know.

On behalf of a few people I asked what the difficulties would be in opening a restaurant or similar business in the municipality. Basically he said that if taking on an existing business this should be quite straight forward but anew premises would require a new licence and due to the restriction on granting licences he doubted whether this could be achieved.

Someone had asked me for an email address for the Town Hall where people could get a direct response and I was reminded of the ayuntamiento@zurgena.es  address which if people contacted in Spanish should get a response although the secretary is very busy at the moment.

I asked if we had progressed any regarding the areas where electricity or water were being supplied by the landowner or builder and was tol this situation was hopefully going to be resolved with the issue of the IBI bills (a subject I have covered frequently before). I did say that only a few people in new houses had so far got their IBI bills this year but he said he expected that they all would be sorted by net year but 50% shoudl be done this year. He did say that the Diputacion were communicating much better with us nowadays, than before, so he was optimistic.

I asked if we could have the road sweeper visit the area of Los Llanos as it had never been there and he said we need to ask Paco to arrange that next week. So I will.

I asked why the Polizia Local could not issue parking tickets to cars parked in Calle Diego Velazquez when we now have a sign saying no parking. It transpires that the sign (which Candido thought was the correct one) is not the legally correct sign and we need to change it. He will visit next week and try and ascertain if we can get one. I will remind him!

I had been asked by a resident if the case against the Sunlit houses had been withdrawn and he said he did not know of that and that things get said which are just rumours.

The new hotel in Zurgena is not Town Hall owned by privately owned and should open soon.

On behalf of some of the residents I asked if the PP's promise to approach the Junta regarding the solid white line outside New Horizons could be changed to a broken white line. He told me that no approach had been made to his knowledge. I will keep it on my list and ask again if we can see if there is anything we can do.

Finally the programme for the Zurgena Fiesta which starts today was published at noon today! The following is a breakdown of the timings.

Thursday 30th August
1700 Kids football tournament municipl court.
1900 Parade of bicycles and infant gamnes in Gines Parra park (by the rambla in Zurgena)
2000 Veterans Football tournament
2030 & 2200 semi finals Paddle Tennis
0030 Election of the Fiesta queen and maids of honour (juvenile and infants).

Friday 31st August
1300 Half day fair in Casa Paquita (opposite the theatre)
1900 Mass and parade in honour of the patron saint San Ramon Nonnato
2330 Music from the Azahara orchestra.

Saturday 1st September
1300 Half day fair Casa Paquita.
1800 Basketball championship at the municipal sports hall.
1900 Infants games Plaza del Olmo
2100 Paddle tennis final.
2330 Music to the Azahara orchestra.

Sunday 2nd September
1030 Petanque tournament (Gines Parra park)
1300 Half day fair Casa Paquita.
1600 Final of sixes and dominoes.
1700 Darts tournament Casa Paquita.
1830 Bubble fiesta in the sports ground.
2330 Music to the band Tivoli
0030 Presentation of the trophies.
0200 Fireworks to close the fiesta.

Those of you who asked me questions I will try and email directly but hopefully most have been answered on this blog posting.






August in Spain!!

During this week I have been tying to speak with Candido about your growing list of issues and it has been difficult, having my grandkids here. Yesterday I delayed taking them to the coast in the hope of meeting with him but that failed. I was then told that he would be in this morning. I have been waiting in all morning and just (at 1.0pm) discovered he was in the Town Hall but he was in conversation with an opposition politician but if I dropped by Pacitos bar at 2.0pm I may be able to put my questions.
So I will try again then!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

PSOE Demo

PSOE are holding a demonstration against the Town Hall tomorrow in Zurgena. I understand that the purpose is to highlight the lack of action in certain areas of the pueblo. It would have helped greatly had the (PSOE controlled Junta) not raised the legal actions that they did, and thereby cause the majority of the TH's focus and funds, to be concentrated on defending these actions.

Most of the Town Hall staff are still on holiday so I will have to wait until next week to discuss the outstanding issues. 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Holiday Over

I got back from our usual summer break in the UK yesterday and have 3 days before family arrive for holidays.

I will try and get into the Town Hall in the next couple of days to try and catch up on some of the outstanding things.

Update Sorry not enough people in the Town Hall until next week so not much point going in today (Friday) will do early next week.