The new municipal government of Barcelona began to walk yesterday maintaining the majority of the structure inherited from the bipartite that commanded the City Council until Thursday the 15th, the date on which the government commission shared by councilors of BComú and the PSC. Yesterday’s day was about getting in touch with the new situation and it won’t be until a few days from now, probably until Thursday, when the governing commission will meet again – this time already monochrome and reduced – and announcements will be made the first measures with which the socialists want to make visible the change in the mayor’s office.
These first decisions, as mayor Jaume Collboni pointed out in the interview published yesterday in La Vanguardia, will be related to two aspects, cleaning and maintenance and security, which will be key in the first months of this government in a clear minority and while the possibility of new additions is not specified, as of now – everything can change after the general elections of July 23 – the commons are the main candidates for entry.
Collboni wants his first measures to be both effective and spectacular. His plans do not include stopping projects that are already underway, although he has already announced that he will not continue some activities with the Colau label, such as the green axes.
The coincidence of the formation of the new government with the beginning of summer reinforces the idea of ??making change visible on the most conflicting stage, that of the public space.
A shock plan to strengthen cleaning, to which most municipal opposition groups could join, and a more uninhibited attitude in matters of security and civility are the weapons of the government of only 10 councilors to face a season especially delicate summer due to the large influx of tourists that is expected and due to all the effects that derive from the massive arrival of visitors to the city. It should be remembered that insecurity and dirt appear in that order in the first two places on the list of problems in Barcelona according to the last municipal barometer made public.
At the moment, Collboni keeps the management structure almost intact. It is already a tradition at Barcelona City Council that changes to the mayor’s office do not cause major disruptions in most municipal areas. There is a line of continuity that is usually respected. Of the three types of managers and senior positions, those who have been at City Hall for half their lives, those who have a very technical profile and those who respond to a marked ideological affiliation, only the latter have their days or weeks numbered.
The planned script includes the appointment as super manager of the young Albert Dalmau, main collaborator of the new mayor and person of his utmost confidence, who in the previous term already directed the area of ??Economic Promotion. Dalmau replaces Sara Berbel, who reached this position of vital importance thanks to the PSC and who has carried out an invaluable task in the operation of the municipal machinery, a particularly complicated task in the context of a very tense relationship like the one they have maintained Ada Colau and Jaume Collboni. Berbel had already communicated to the two politicians months ago his desire to close his municipal stage regardless of the outcome of the elections.
The first decrees signed by the mayor already design the top of this municipal government to face the first weeks of the mandate. The macro area headed by the first deputy mayor, Laia Bonet, with some of the most important powers of the City Council’s management (Ecology, Urbanism, Infrastructure, Mobility, Public Space and Housing) turns what was number three from the list of the PSC in the last elections in number two of the City Council, not only for rank purposes, but also in practice.
The magnitude of this area, equivalent to the one led by Janet Sanz until now, will make it essential to appoint other executive positions of a political nature with functions that until now were carried out by councilors and that, taking into account the precariousness of the staff of the government, expressly appointed commissioners will act. This circumstance will certainly occur in Mobility and also in other areas dependent on other deputy mayors, for example, in Culture, where former councilor Xavier Marcé has many options to fill a commissioner.
The second on Collboni’s list on May 28, the former dean of the Bar Association of Barcelona, ??Maria Eugènia Gay, in addition to initially being in charge of Social Rights, among other responsibilities, will assume the direction of the district more elusive to the interests of the socialists, that of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.
The third deputy mayor, Albert Batlle, will also have more work to do, as he will add the Ciutat Vella district to the Security area in this mandate, as Jaume Collboni promised during the campaign.
The councilors’ poker game over who will have socialist power in the Consistory is completed by a new councilor at Barcelona City Council, but with extensive political and management experience. Former mayor of Manresa, former president of the port of Barcelona, ??former councilor for Labor and Industry of the Generalitat and lately director general of Mercabarna, Jordi Valls is responsible for maintaining very strong municipal finances which, according to mayor Collboni, are very sound and which they must allow a certain budget and investment joy in the city in the coming years.
