The mayor gave a detailed response to our motion about the Employment Workshop at the Council Meeting last Wednesday (28th March). We had been asked by a number of unhappy residents to query the selection process used in choosing the students for the industrial boilermaking Employment Workshop. You will find a summary of the Mayor´s answers in section 6 of the notes on the Council Meeting that we have printed below.
We also submitted two other motions. One regarding a possible link between Bédar and the Henri Poincaré University in Nancy, France for geology students to study in Bédar, and another asking the Mayor to take action to preserve the newly discovered Moorish water tank and its fresco paintings near Basalta. It is considered to be oldest know remains in Bedar. There are details of these motions in a previous blog. The mayor decided that these motions were not urgent and referred them to the next meeting in three months.
Other motions on the agenda were submitted by the PSOE party and were largely about national issues that had a very limited relevance to the People of Bédar (Items 2,3 and 4). Item 5 was a technical correction.
Notes from Ordinary Plenary Session of Bedar Town Hall, 28 March 2012 at 8pm
In attendance were all councillors, the Mayor and Town Secretary. One member of the public attended.
1. The Minutes from the previous extraordinary plenary session of 27 Feb 2012 were unanimously approved.
2. The next order of business referred to a regional/nationwide PSOE motion to reject the PP-controlled state government´s royal decree/law 1/2012 of 27 of Jan which rescinded the previous PSOE government´s agreements on incentives and payments regarding renewable energy projects. The inefficiency of those incentives and the lack of an overall supply-and-demand monitoring system has been widely criticised in the international press. The latest PSOE motion underscores the importance of renewable energy sources in Andalucia and points out that rescinding the previously agreed upon incentives will reflect badly on Spain´s reputation for honouring legal contracts.
The Independent/PP spokeswoman argued that the motion was a national issue without implications on the local front. The Mayor argued the reverse. The motion was passed by six votes, all PSOE, in favour, with three abstentions from the Opposition group.
3. This referred to another regional/nationwide PSOE motion to withdraw royal decree/law 3/2012 related to urgent labour market reform during the current financial crisis. The Opposition spokesperson argued again that this was an issue to be debated at national level. The Mayor argued that the labour reform had local implications and cited cases where vulnerable sectors of the labour force, in particular pregnant women, had been summarily fired from their jobs. The Opposition spokesperson said that this practice had always taken place and was not a result of the latest round of labour reforms which allows business owners much more latitude in dismissing workers. The motion was approved by six votes in favour, all PSOE, and three against from the Opposition group.
4. This referred to a regional/nationwide PSOE motion to maintain the original calendar for application of law 39/2006 regarding assistance to dependent persons. According to the motion, some 43,000 persons in Andalucia require part-time or full-time assistance to carry out their daily activities and the proposed slowdown in disbursements would adversely affect both the caregivers´ livelihoods and those in their care. The motion was unanimously passed.
5. This point referred to a technicality in laying out the graphic borders of Sector 4 in El Pinar. A small corner of one property owner´s plot had been included in the Plan Parcial as belonging to a neighbour and the two property owners affected were in agreement on the error. The Town Hall was not affected in any way but had to carry out certain procedures to correct the error.
6. Under Urgent Matters, the Mayor decided that only one of the three motions presented by the Independent/PP group was urgent, namely that related to the Employment Workshop. He said he would deal with the motions regarding the French university study project and the preservation of the Basalta wall paintings as regular motions at the next ordinary plenary in three months.
As requested in the Opposition motion, the Mayor then explained in some detail the actual selection process for students accepted in the forthcoming Industrial Boilermaking employment workshop. First he said that all procedures had been laid out and implemented by the Junta de Andalucia who was paying the salaries. He said there was a mixed committee made up of civil servants from the Junta (2) and one from the town hall and that therefore the Junta representatives always had final say.
The Mayor said that the initial set of requirements were age (between 25-65 yrs); currently unemployed and registered as such; minimum of three months´ construction experience. All applicants were then graded on a point system, including factors such as previously related courses, whether applicant was handicapped, held immigrant status, etc. The Mayor read out the point results of the 17 persons who had been notified by SAE, the organism responsible for the selection, to attend a personal interview. The Mayor also read out the grades of the interview.
A final 12 students were selected whose names have been published on the appropriate regional bulletin board. The Opposition spokesperson said she was satisfied with the explanation. The urgent motion to provide details regarding the selection process was therefore unanimously approved.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the Mayor mentioned that there were rules regarding where political signs could be hung during campaign periods. He said that he hoped that in future, these rules could be respected.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:45pm.
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