AliceB

For anyone interested, on June 28th at 10:30, an informal meeting with Mr. Jose Correa, Assistant Mayor of Ayamonte and President of the EUC, will be held in the Golf Club in Costa Esuri.

Kath Las Colinas

I think it's important that as many people as possible attend. If he walks into a room with only a handful of people in, what chance have we of getting anything done. It's hard enough as it is.

Kath Las Colinas

Unfortunately the town hall has cancelled the meeting at short notice. If I hear of the rearranged date I will post an update.

AliceB

Typical !

Jon-Bxl

Hi I was wondering how the class action and ombudsman action against the EUC are going, please?

See below. The thread about the legal action has closed it seems as no posts/quotes can be added

Thanks
Jon

http://britishexpats.com/forum/ayamo.../#post11609888

http://britishexpats.com/forum/ayamo.../#post11507798

Kath Las Colinas

Today Tuesday 5th July at 12.00 noon. Please, as many as possible should attend. If we don't attend and show we care about Costa Esuri, why should the town hall care about us??!!

AliceB

Its all a bit last minute...
Regardless if people turn up or not, they really do not care about Costa Esuri, the town hall's cash cow to which they occasionally pay lip service.
Their tactics to ensure as few as possible turn up, if they "cared" they would set a date in advance, advertise the meeting and stick to it.
Your posts are the only indication of this meeting, which we are very appreciative to you. Thank you.
Not everybody reads this forum and other than this source,, nobody knows about it.

Kath Las Colinas

I have put it on the CERA Facebook page too. It was reasonable well attended with a good showing of Spaniards too. It lasted 2 1/2 hours so obviously everyone had a lot to say although much of it was 'we would love to but we just don't have the money'. He did say that as of last week they have now received the EUC accounts so hopefully will be able to set a date for the AGM soon. He also suggested having similar meetings on a monthly basis so if this can be arranged I will post here and on Facebook too.

AliceB

cheers Kath,,

AliceB

For those interested; a brief summary of the informal meeting today; the translation was not great - not giving clear explanations of the points, for example,, when she said “the Town Hall have 53€million debt” ,,please don’t quote the messenger here on this point as it might be bad translation. Because equally rather than saying 4.5€million, the translator said “45€million”
Obviously, this is a summary and if anyone who was there can offer additional insight and / or corrections to anything below, please do. Don’t shoot the messenger,, all these points are based on the translation, which was difficult to get clarity on a lot of the time

Not in any particular order,, just a few points -
· The current “agreement with Fadesa expires in Dec 2016” after which Town Hall can release and then spend the 4.5€million. (wasn’t it 6€million ?).
· Prior to that “agreement” expiration date, Town Hall can not touch the funds.
· They (assume he was representing the EUC as president, on this one??) have not produced a budget for 2016; they have “extended the 2015 budget”.
· The last administration only just released the accounts last week; hence no AGM has been called so far this year.
· Consequently, now that they have the accounts, they will prepare for the next AGM (no indication of when)
· When the current “agreement with Fadesa expires in Dec 2016” Town Hall will set out a “plan” and he promised at the next meeting will “have all the details” to do the “most important first”…
· Once Town Hall take responsibility, they will do “important work first”
· Town Hall have “asked the Junta for a medical centre” – Junta requires construction of a building first, Town Hall currently has no money to build the facility, (being "53€million" in debt).
· Town Hall categorically informed that if the 4.5€million “funds from Fadesa” are not enough to “finish the project”, the owners “will not pay, Town Hall will pay”.
· Town Hall are in contact with telefonica/movistar regarding cables; informed there is a “common contract with other areas” involved, so are currently waiting other issues to be resolved. But “promised there will be broadband”
· Fadesa have only carried out “small works” in the past two years; Town Hall informed that Fadesa wanted payment for “each small work” but Town Hall said no, they will only pay once all works have been completed. As such, there is little expectation that any more “small works” will be conducted prior to the expiration of their “current agreement”.
· At the moment Town Hall has no money or staff to consider a sporting facility in Costa Esuri; although promises “to do it as soon as possible”.
· Town Hall wants to reuse the garbage housing (wood slats) hence has not asked GIAHSA to remove them, because they will simply take them away.

That’s all for now. It was confusing, no real clarity and a lot of talking round in circles. But there was a good turn out with a lot of interesting questions,, which were handled well… in general!
Maybe we can start 2017 with ... lets see.
Al

Kath Las Colinas

About how I remembered, thanks Alice. The only things that I would add are that I thought that the plan (point 6) was to be put forward at the EUC AGM but am happy to be told that was wrong. As for the wooden slats around the bins, a suggestion was made that they be used for the sports ground but he said that this was to be a wall. I agree that the translation wasn't always helpful and in fact she gave up towards the end.

MEL & JOHN

Hi Alice and Kath, Thank you both very much for posting the information and updates. Much appreciated. Ta Mel

Jon-Bxl

Let me second that thanks Kath and Alice.

I may be totally wrong but my understanding was that the 4.5m money could be released now to Fadesa but they don't trust them and so they wait until they become officially terminated and then they have full control over the money. It's in a protected account and I hope that once the company is terminated that control will still require that all of the money is spent on CE!!

I was particularly interested in the body language and frankly I agree there is a lot of lip service to us . Also I think they expected a lot of the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that we are the cash cow as Alice mentioned and our money is also being spent outside of CE.

I am concerned as to how we can reverse that in the future and have a proper allocation of funds to CE which would mean that less would therefore be going to other parts of Ayamonte. At times I felt there was a lot of preplanned 'fobbing off'

There was also some talk of the water treatment plant, that I didn't fully understand - and it's transfer to Telefonica as some sort of 'substation' for broadband but they were held up on contractual troubles.Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Perhaps I was a bit tough when I mentioned that the Town Hall was unresponsive and unhelpful and even obsructive to business, however to be fair to them, I think I genuinely surprised them with that, based on their reaction.

My example was the 19H and in the meeting and discussion in the bar afterwards with one of the villa owners no-one (town hall or us) knew what permission was being held up by the town hall. I suspect that I was told a bit of a porkie by JM when he told me 19H would be closed awaiting Town Hall beaurocracy. We all know how complex the situation is with 19H, so there is probably more behind the scenes here. (BTW I am now more concerned than ever that this business can succeed with the current 'system'.)

However it's my opinion that there are no special programs, incentives or strategies for encouraging new business in the town hall, certainly for CE. Nor do I feel they would fast-track the beaurocratic processes there. Just my opinion based on the reaction/body language.

It was a good turnout but I wish we could have started on time, also that people stayed silent during the translations. I joked that we should have 2 lights one for Spanish, another colour for English so that people got a visual clue to be silent!

Jon

Kath Las Colinas

Jon, I asked that specific question after you had left. He kept going on about needing to get planning permission from the municipal council (Huelva?). It was not made clear whether or not anyone had applied for permission, it sounded to me like the usual excuses. When asked about the existing locales near the shop said that no-one had expressed any interest. So the answer is no, nothing to encourage new businesses.

Luz liver

My twopenneth.

Alice, all members of the residents association were informed about the meeting in advance.
Jon, having run a small business in Ayamonte for some years (no longer thank god) there is no help or encouragement from the town hall for anyone. If there were though it would be for the town centre where we have plenty of empty retail units. Ayamonte needs tourism and a deserted rundown town centre is bad for business but they still do nothing.