The new Government team of the Valencia City Council chaired by María José Catalá and made up only of PP councilors is clearly committed to a city model different from the one projected during two terms by the progressive forces of Compromís and PSPV. First in a more symbolic way and now with the first measures, the new Executive tries to leave its mark on the most important town hall of the Valencian Community.
However, this transition is not being easy for Mayor María José Catalá, who has verified that her “preferred partner” (as she called Vox after giving exclusive dedication to her four councilors) is not trustworthy.
This week, the popular have had important clashes with the extreme right. A tension that was staged, at the beginning of the week, in the middle of the street with a discussion in the presence of opposition councilors over the change in the city's toponym. On Thursday, València Plaza also revealed that in a committee debate, the demand to increase the number of National Police agents in the Casitas Rosas also generated an angry fight between the two parties condemned to come to an understanding.
However, the government team considers that Vox has opted for overacting and understands that, in order to be noticed outside the government team, they have to make certain scenes and risque statements. As did his municipal spokesperson, Juanma Badenes, to put on the table that his team would not reach any agreement with the owner of Valencia CF, Peter Lim. “Theatre is part of the political show,” say sources close to Catalá.
The truth is that this week, the PP has agreed on initiatives with PSPV and Compromís (the defense of the European green capital), with the PSPV and Vox (PAI of Benimaclet) and only with the extreme right (more police presence in the so-called Casitas Roses and change in the official name of the city). The popular ones assume that we have to play with this scenario in the face of the brave commitment to a minority government that Catalá once elected, aware that it did not need Vox's votes for the investiture.
This being the case, the change in the city model is advancing not without some slowness. Catalá, a politician with great experience, has played in these first months of her mandate with symbolic aspects such as the return of the Virgen de los Desamparados to the main floor of the Valencia City Council, the lifting of the suppression of the embolado bull or the announcements about the recognition of the figure of former mayor Rita Barberá: she will be named honorary mayor of the city and will have a bridge with her name.
However, and despite the difficulties of its minority in the council (13 out of 33 councillors), the new Executive has already demonstrated its commitment to a new mobility policy (symbol of the left's passage through the capital's council). . He did it a few days ago by cutting a bike lane already built in a peripheral neighborhood and slipping that this commitment to cycle streets (streets where bikes and cars coexist at 30 kilometers per hour) would not be the only one. What to do with the bike lanes on the large avenues is under study. We want to accompany these changes with a great structuring of the EMT municipal transport lines.
His team insists that reports have been commissioned and that all mobility actions will be carried out in accordance with the technicians' criteria and "placing the pedestrian at the center." They take refuge in them before making a final decision on the removal of the Pérez Galdós Avenue tunnel requested by neighborhood associations from various neighborhoods and which the local government has put fallow until it knows what impact it would have on the 60,000 daily vehicles that pass through it. this infrastructure. The issue generated a neighborhood protest against the council last weekend.
For now, shielded by technical criteria and without major revolutions, the Executive seems to be betting - after pressing the accelerator on symbolic issues - for a calm change in the city model. In fact, to unblock Benimaclet's PAI, the PP has opted for the proposal that was commissioned by the Department of Urban Planning (in the hands of the PSPV), which has caused the socialists to validate the initiative with their vote.
Yes, more politics has been done on issues such as cleaning, where a shock plan was announced as soon as it was introduced, or on the issue of security, an issue that the current government team has wanted to link to the problem of the occupation. For this reason, measures have been taken such as cutting off the electricity in certain buildings or announcing, for example, that the squatters will be expelled from the registry.
