If you have already got hold of and read a May copy of the Seaside Gazette you will have read about the Monachil Council fiasco. Since then things have got worse.
As a quick recap both major parties in the Monachil Town Council wanted to approve a new ski-lift for Sierra Nevada – the ski resort lies within the municipality of Monachil. The socialist (PSOE) mayor wanted it, and the chief opposition party (PP) wanted it.
There should have been no problem but there was because a minor greens party was against it for environmental reasons.
Both the PP and the PSOE had the brilliant idea of abstaining and letting the other one vote in favour, so that they wouldn’t be seen as “anti-environmental.” Unfortunately both abstained for the same reason (to their combined horror) and the greens voted against, so the motion was rejected.
So, another Plenary Meeting was planned for today to push the same motion and this time get it approved, because if not the ski lift would not be completed in time for next skiing season. However, the Plenary Meeting has been suspended.
As for the previous fracaso, both the PP and PSOE ‘justified’ abstaining because of a lack of informtion, which was a ridiculous excuse as they both knew full well all about the project.
So a meeting was held with the people that run the ski station (a semi-public company controlled by the PP through the Junta de Andalucía. After this completely pointless meeting both parties said that they would vote in favour.
Now to be able to justify an Extraordinary Plenary Meeting to vote on the same motion previously rejected, they needed an official appleal from the ski-station company, Cetursawhich it did submit. However, the ecologist organisaation, Ecologists in Actionalso took the opportunity to enter its objections, which scuppered the planed EPM.
The Mayor, José Morales, explained that they had decided to postpone the EPM in order for municipal technical experts to study the objections register by Ecologists in Accion.
The overriding fact is that without the initial municipal approval, the long list of administrative paper shuffling between the Andalusian Governmentthe Town Hall and Cetursa can’t even begin, let alone for actual construction work to begin.
According to Ecologists in Action, what the Junta and the Town Hall want to do up on Sierra Nevada is “a barbarity” because both the chair lift, which travels just off the ground, and the new ski slope will “destroy 24,000 sq/m of land.” They say that it is a area of extreme protection and that Cetursa wants to generate snow (snow cannons) where there hasn’t been any for many years.
So, on the one hand, if the PP and PSOE hadn’t tried to be so clever, ‘playing chicken’ with their political adversaries, the motion would have been approved on the 13th of April – they had the majority between them. And on the other, human intrusion in this Natural Park is a growing problem so perhaps more snow cannons and a chair lift in an area untouched by skiing operations is not the right way to go.
(News: Monachil, City & Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)