Cirer is told: “stop fencing”

Staff Reporter SPOKESMAN for the Majorcan Socialist Party in Palma City Council, Pere Muñoz, urged the mayor Catalina Cirer to put her town planning policy “to rights” and to push for some “solid agreement” between local government and people who live and work in the area. The spokesman justified his call for a decisive move from the mayor's ruling party by asserting that far from having a cohesive strategy for urban development, Cirer and her team had merely marginalised town planning issues as if they (the issues) were something “fashionable”. This fragmented approach to Palma City's infrastructure, claimed Muñoz, had meant tabling items in isolation, such as the Secar de la Real housing development, the Palacio de Congresos (government building) and a second ringroad. He also criticised the fact that, in spite of the “fine intentions” of the mayor's party when they came to power in May last year, “there has been no major step forward in co-ordinated urban planning”. He accused the mayor of “keeping information from the Opposition, of lying shamelessly, of losing control and of treating other political parties with scant respect”. “In short”, he added, “the Popular Party has gone in search of confrontation”. Making specific reference to the mayor, he claimed that “ruling by creating dispute is no way to govern a city”. Muñoz said he was therefore appealing to the mayor and her team to “put their house in order” on the issue of town planning, so that all sections of the government and civilian groups had a chance to enter the debate on urban development.