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This made me laugh. Martin had a point tho’. Marching kids out of school and telling them to “smile and wave” when the President came by?

Don’t steal kids for political photos – or when Franco mark 2 came to Turre.

Only consolation is that old Grimy didn’t look too happy in the photo. Did he want to be surrounded by sticky kids?

The dark days of GIL are put behind Marbella as the town faces a fresh new future. 16,500 homes are to be legalised and developers will be chased for compensation payments from the town hall.

http://thereader.es/en/andalucia-news-stories/318-marbella-approves-pgou-16500-homes-legalised-1500-to-be-demolished.html

Oh, 1,500 homes will still be demolished (500 of them lived in) but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, as they say….

Alberto Saiz, head of the C.N.I., Spain’s secret agency, has quit only two months after being reappointed for afurther term as the agency’s head after being accused of spending public money on funding his own lavish lifestyle.

Spies have come forward to complain that they were being used “to ferry his family around” rather than fight terrorism, according to leaked reports to daily “El País” newspaper.

It appears that Servicom is taking out vast quantities of gravel and sand out of the Rio Aguas near Mojácar on a somewhat dodgy license issued by Almería. It seems they are preparing for a major contract (AVÉ? Have they announced who’s won that contract locally yet?) and rather than spend money bringing it out of legal quarries have a piece of paper from Almería authorising them to dig up the riverbed.

Local residents are furious, as not only is it illegal to dig up riverbeds, it’s cutting off communications, damaging the nature reserves and flood defenses and causing an almighty mess.

Local residents also fear that in the next storms the water will simply wash out the protected laguna area next to La Mata.

See the work in progress for yourself – it’s the riverbed up from the bridge below Mojácar. Slow down next to Southern Spain’s largest electric pylon and have a look.

The Public Prosecutor (Fiscalia) has decided not to accept a case prosecuting the townhall of Carboneras and the Junta de Andalucía for initially permitting the construction of the illegal hotel “El Algarrobico”, despite criticism from judges in related cases of the way the original construction was allowed to go ahead.

Various ecologist groups had placed criminal charges against Carboneras townhall and the Junta de Andalucía alleging incompetence, conflict of interest and outright bribery. They also cited a statement made by the instructing judge who ordered the paralysation of the building works, in which he stated that there were clear signs that the law had been breeched by public administrations.

However, the Fiscalia has announced that they are unable to see a reason to prosecute and have decided to archive the case for lack of evidence. Ecologistas en Accion have already announced their intention to appeal to Fiscal General del Estado, the general prosecutor of the State.

Clemente García, provincial delegate of the Environment in Almería, said that it was clear that all public administrations had done their work correctly at all times, but insisted that it was still the Junta’s intention to knock down the hotel as soon as it was legal to do so. “The Algarrobico is stopped and closed” he assured reporters.

Modesto Francisco Lopez Ortega is the promotor who can be seen in this infamous video giving the corrupt mayor of Ohanes (a small village above Almeria) 30,000€ for a building license. After falling out with the mayor, he handed over the video to the Guardia. The Mayor (now ex mayor), who was allowed by PSOE to resign “with dignity” from his post and his membership of the party (early retirement, apparantly; going to spend more time with the inmates at the local jail) is now on trial charged with abuse of power, accepting and requesting bribes and fiscal coercion. PP is using this case as ammo in it’s war against the PSOE, arguing that it shows that both sides have rotten apples and it’s not fair that Garzon is just concentrating on them.

Modesto Lopez, promotor

Modesto gave an interview to La Voz de Almeria explaining why he shopped Mayor Juan Francisco Sierra. Modesto owned a company called “Menjemor Promociones y Desarrollos Turisticos S.L.”, which has built since 2001 some 200 homes in the area around Ohanes, 108 of them before 2005. It seems that of the last 25 homes he built, Mayor Juan Francisco refused to give him the occuptation license for over 11 months, something that ruined the businessman.

In the article, he claims that several years ago the mayor “suggested” that he might be able to speed up the planning process in exchange for a bit of cash. Paella I think they call it. Over time, the demands became more extravagent; he claims that the mayor at one point asked for a house” at cost” (no news on if he got it).

It got to the point, he claims, when he was unable to pay the mayor and in exchange the mayor refused to give him the licenses – this, together with the crisis, forced him into insolvency.

He also claims, a point that has been picked up the P.P., that at one point he made an “unofficial” complaint to the PSOE party in Almeria, but was met with an attitude of “yes… we know… so what?”.

This little case promises to roll on…. the ex-mayor is expected up again in front of the beak tomorrow at 10am. “Justice”, says Modesto, “will have the final word”.

The newspaper ABC has released a video showing the mayor of Ohanes, a small village in Almería, accepting cash from a builder in exchange for building licenses in May 2005.

The Mayor is seen counting out notes to the amount of €29,000; whereupon he asks why €1000 is missing and the promotor agrees to pass the money to him the next day. They discuss the handover of the paperwork, and a verbal promise to pay a further €30,000 upon receipt of signed paperwork is audible.

Mayor Juan Francisco Sevilla (who resigned when allegations of this case came to light) is awaiting trial on other charges of corruption and fiscal coercion. He belong(ed) to the PSOE party – it appears that he was allowed to resign with honour intact- and the P.P. are demanding action.

Here’s the video (Thanks to Kalebeul for pointing me in the direction of it):

El Pais recently published a rather nasty “special report” on illegal homes built across Andalucia, protest groups formed to protect owners rights and the protest march scheduled for the 9th of January in Almeria and. (Libertad Paloma, from Cadiz, 7/12/08).

“They built without permission, they paid a lot less for their homes than for a normal home and they broke the law. But still they ask for more. Around the illegal suburbs built in Andalucia have developed pressure groups to convince the regional administration to ignore their crimes and reduce the costs which they will incur regulating their illegal homes”.

You can read the whole thing in Spanish here.

Here’s a rather bad translation (no time to clear it up, sorry) put through Google Translate:

As you will know, there is a protest march organised by such AVEP, AULAN, AUAN, AUN, LSOS, Cuidadanos Europeos and others, in Almeria on the 9th of Jan through Almeria city to try to bring media attention back to the Priors case and urban abuse in general. (See programme info at Spanish Shilling or other good websites).

While not wishing to aspirations on the much lauded attempt to bring media attention back to the Priors, I am forced to wonder just how much good a march like this will do, and, indeed, if it is contraproductive in the short to medium term.

This is a march that is designed only to bring EU attention to the case, following on from the recent EU draft parlimentary resolution on Urban Abuse in Spain (blog entry here) and hopefully UK & German press attention.

But from a local perspective, and in my opinion after reading quite a bit about it in local (Spanish) press this is not going to sit well with regional politicians, who, as expats can’t vote in regional or national elections in Spain, don’t give two hoots what they think about anything. But they do care what local Spaniards and national press say. Since the economic downturn has just about killed off the expat property market, the politicians don’t need to worry about bad press back in the UK – promoters are too busy trying to stay afloat to bring any real pressure on the politicians and nobody really thinks that Brits back in the UK are going to be scared off because of a protest march (as they aren’t going anywhere until the pound pops back up).

So we’re in a situation where Brits are marching in the streets of Almeria, and the politicians are only worried about the locals. So, how are the politicians going to try to control the situation and come out smelling of roses?

First of all, and we’re seeing this now, they are trying to turn this into a Expat vs Locals situation. Once the (Spanish) press believe that it is only Expats that are affected, then they’ll stop trying to see the (mainly expat) property owners point of view. And they’re doing this by pointing out that in many cases proper legal protocol wasn’t carried out “in order to save the purchasers money – didn’t trust / didn’t have the money to pay proper lawyers, gestors, notaries that we Spanish do! So why is it our fault they were conned?”

Then they say that “the Brits were fully aware of the situation, but just thought that since they were rich immigrants they could get away with it and stuff the locals, we poor people who pay tax and live legally, so it’s their problem to sort it out”.

And so we end up in a situation where the (Spanish) press, while sympathetic, believe that it’s the purchasers fault for trying to save money on their homes in Spain, avoid the tax they should pay and brought illegal homes without carrying out proper checks because they thought they were invincible.

And don’t start on about rigorous journalistic reports in the impartial media, because that doesn’t exist. Rare is the Spanish newspaper that does not tow the party political line. Editors are easily replaceable if the proprietor doesn’t agree with his papers opinions.

And the politicians can point out, to the rare voice that asks what’s being done, to the commission being setup to survey and regulate illegal homes in the area. “Yes”, they’ll say, smugly, “the Brits are complaining, but it’s because they can’t be bothered to learn Spanish or integrate with our community – we’re sorting the problem out but they can’t even be bothered to ask what we’re doing!”

Why, I’ve even seen comments in the press that suggest that with the collapse of the pound property owners are trying to get their homes ruled illegal so that they can get out of paying the mortgage!

And so we Brits appear, marching through the streets, in a well intentioned, well organised, multi lingual protest – a lovely image that will be quickly swung around in the public mind to “whinging immigrants who tried to con local Spaniards by ignoring rules and refused to pay the same taxes I have to pay!”

And that’s why I feel the march is counterproductive for the local market (ignoring the international media attention it may -or may not- generate, which will help with the EU). But even if the EU brings pressure onto Spain, it will just increase the local sentiment of “Bloody Brits, welcomed them into my country and they’re worse than the bloody Moros“.If we’re not careful.

The fellow in charge of the CONSEJO AUDIOVISUAL DE ANDALUCÍA (Audiovisual Department of Andalucia), a department of the Junta de Andalucia, is Francisco Cervantes Bolanos (info). He owns half of a company called Hermanos Cervantes Gutierrez, S.L., according to his public declaracion de bienes.

And what does Hnos Cervantes Gutierrez S.L. do? Why, it’s an Audio Visual Company that works in Seville for the public administration.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.