The mayor of Valencia, Maria José Catalá (PP), highlighted this Friday the “enormous work” of the municipality to mitigate the effects of the DANA that October 29 devastated towns in this province and three districts of the capital and helped the victims, while calling for “not to ruin it”. He assured that this local company worked “impressively” and “came together to help its people” and “solve a huge problem”.
On the opposition side, the spokesperson for Compromís, Papi Robles, reiterated that the measures approved by the council, the modifications of the 2024 budget to allow aid and actions and the positions provided for this purpose in the accounts 2025 are “patches”, in addition to requiring “a plan” of action. PSPV spokesperson Borja Sanjuán considered the measures planned to remedy the consequences of the damage “insufficient” and said they had not been implemented quickly.
All expressed themselves during the extraordinary and urgent plenary session held this Friday in this town hall to approve, by 7.8 million eurosthe tenth modification of appropriations in the 2024 budget to allow provisions for disaster recovery. This measure was adopted with the yes of the local executive composed of PP and Vox and with that of Compromís and had the abstention of the PSPV.
The plenary session began with a minute of silence for the victims of Dana, coinciding with the day that marks the first month of this storm. The plenary assembly also approved, in this case unanimously and taking into account the effects of the dana, a temporary modification of the regulations of loading and unloading areas to authorize the use of these spaces by private vehicles of self-employed workers who lost their vans due to flooding.
The appropriation modification of the 2024 budget this Friday – for a total of 7,894,000 euros – includes 4 million euros for direct aid to businesses, hospitality establishments, self-employed people and small businesses whose premises and activities have been affected.
This modification also includes 3 million allocated to Municipal Agrarian Council to repair the roads and highways in the areas of the municipality affected by the damage, as well as the modification of the agreement with the Bakers’ Guild taking into account the fact that this entity has “from the first moment” served bread to the municipalities affected.
Catalá and the first deputy mayor and Treasury advisor, María José Ferrer San Segundo, highlighted in plenary that this modification of the 2024 budget is in addition to the 5 million euros approved at the beginning of November also on these social emergency accounts. help after the storm. Likewise, they stressed that it is added to the 8.5 million agreed for clean the Albufera after the dana and the 10 million from the so-called Dana Fund collected in the 2025 municipal budget.
María José Catalá clarified, in response to criticism from the opposition, that the aid provided for in the 7.8 million granted is “direct” and “non-repayable”. “These are not loans with interest as the Spanish government does, which has not paid a single euro in aid for the moment” while “the Generalitat has already paid 21 million euros in aid to those affected.
“Thank you all”
“It should be remembered that this municipality has made all the means” available to “its three districts concerned,” declared the mayor, who declared that “not only did it act in its municipal territory, but it done in other municipalities. ” At the same time, he emphasized that this company accomplished this task in a “united” way. “Thanks to all of you, we did our job well,” he said. the opposition.
The first mayor underlined the “dimension of the tragedy” and insisted on the “enormous work” of the municipality to deal with it. At this point, he considered it “impressive” that Compromís and the PSPV seek to “take full advantage of the budgetary modification to undo the work” that has been done “impressively”.
“Of course there is still dust. How can there not be dust left after this dana?“, he added in response to criticism from Robles, who called for the cleaning of the streets and the disinfection of parks and gardens affected by the floods. Catalá also highlighted that “100,000 euros have already been paid in assistance and emergency aid.”
The Compromís spokesperson spoke of the “serious situation” that La Torre, Castellar-l’Oliveral and Forn d’Alcedo are experiencing and missed the “emergency contracts” to deal with it, remove “the dust and the mud” and strengthen the service of the Municipal Transport Company (EMT), in addition to asking “one month later” for Dana solutions for “people left without housing” and for industrial zones.
Papi Robles indicated that his group would support the budgetary modification, but considered that the aid is “little” and asked, from a “constructive opposition”, for “administrative tools at the service of the people” and that “the “We’re not going to want to hear from this city council that everything is done,” he added. “What we’ve seen so far is that they don’t. ‘have no plan,’ he told the government.
“For the moment to philosophize”
Borja Sanjuan He considered that “there is a problem” about “the way in which the Town Hall understood what financial aid was or meant” and criticized “that it abandoned it for the time to philosophize, not to survive.” “It is very significant that a month later the first modification is approved with direct aid, not to the people affected, because we still know nothing about them, but to companies suffering from a kind of Dana disease “, he explained.
“I don’t know if you think they did it as quickly as they could have, but they didn’t do it as quickly as they should have,” he told government members municipal. Likewise, the socialist spokesperson declared that the 4 million for commerce, hotels and the self-employed constitute “a very insufficient, tiny, ridiculous and shameful amount”. “Although this is additional aid, everyone is aware that a municipality with a budget of 1.2 billion euros has the capacity to do much more,” he said .
Regarding the 3 million for rural roads, Sanjuán, who affirmed that the municipality’s aid in the previous term to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic was higher, criticized that it did not have “the ability to spend it.
