The PSOE in Torrevieja has publicly accused the mayor, Eduardo Dolon, of “consciously lying” to the public, “regularly”, but that since the opposition does not have the right to respond in plenary sessions, they resort to creating videos that they have uploaded to their social networks and those of the party.
In this case, it was the socialist councillor Carolina Ponce who was in charge of denying, documentation in hand, all the false information offered by Eduardo Dolón in the plenary session held on March 25 in response to an intervention that she herself carried out.
The councillor highlighted the serious situation that Torrevieja schools are experiencing with a ratio of students much higher than what they should have according to the regulations. Furthermore, the PP and Vox government has recently voted in Les Corts against the lowering of these ratios, a fact that the socialist councillor has disfigured the government team.
To this fact, the mayor responded that the ratios were raised because of Ximo Puig’s government and that the socialists should apologise. However, according to the PSOE, the reality is that Wert, minister of the PP, raised the ratios in 2012 to 30 students in primary and 36 in secondary and it was Ximo Puig, who lowered the ratios to 25 in primary and 30 in secondary.
The councillor, in her video, cites the two regulations and shows documentation requested and sent in writing by the education councillor himself, Mr. Recuero, although the mayor states that his interventions are due to the fact that “he does not ask councillors or technicians”. Likewise, Ponce assures that the real culprit of this situation is the local PP, which has not had foresight and does not offer the corresponding services to a city that does not stop increasing its inhabitants and that is going to have it more complicated by having cut the budget which will affect the Torrevieja school fabric.
On the other hand, in her intervention, the councillor revealed that the Municipal Absenteeism Plan is not being carried out as it should, due to the scarcity and temporality of human resources. Given the local government’s intention to outsource the school truancy prevention service, the socialists expressed their disagreement, as they believe that the solution is to provide more staff and stability to this service, and comply with the Municipal Absenteeism Plan.
The councillor added regarding the “bullying prevention program,” that they support the initiative and that, however, they will be careful to ensure that it does not end in “two talks and a promotional video.” Dolón answered that the “Labor” association is in charge of carrying out these programs and offered data as current, when the truth is that the “Labor” association ended its contract in 2022 and since then, there have been no harassment prevention or absenteeism programs in educational centres, by the Department of Education.
The councillor has also responded to Dolón that the team specialised in childhood and adolescence (EEIIA) has never consisted of 10 technicians, as the mayor assured in the plenary session itself, but has been made up of 4 workers. In fact, the Ministry has been financing the Council so that the hiring of this team was 5 people, for which the amount corresponding to the salary of one person has been returned, since all of these are subsidised actions.
Finally, Ponce wanted to respond to the statement that the mayor made in the December 2023 plenary session when the socialist councillor herself requested that he increase the social welfare personnel, which is far below what the law establishes and therefore does not provide, even remotely, all the social services it should provide.
At that time, Dolón literally said that since he has been governing “the number of officials in that department had doubled.” With the data obtained from the personnel department, the socialist councillor has done the maths since 2011, the year in which the mayor began his first term, until 2024, resulting in that we have 14 technicians, 5 administrative staff and 1 person in legal assistance when, based on to the population of the city, we should have 33 technical personnel, 20 from administration and 5 people in legal assistance, this without counting the EEIIA team, in which there should be 5 and we currently have 1.
The PP only created two positions before 2024 and on an interim basis. Already in 2024, after the insistence of the PSOE of Torrevieja, four positions have also been created on an interim basis. That is, in 9 years as mayor, Dolón has created SIX PLACES, despite the fact that Law 3/2019, on Social Services, establishes that we still lack 38 to provide the service required by a population that exceeds 100,000 inhabitants.
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