He has begun to govern in a minority with nine councilors, five of the majority, but willing to agree with any opposition party, with the exception of Vox. A good communicator and with an affable character, married to a young woman and father of two girls, he grew up in the Camp Clar neighbourhood, one of the most humble in Tarragona. Signed from Ciudadanos by the PSC, only four years after the historic victory of ERC they have recovered the mayoralty.
How has the Town Hall been found?
For treasury purposes, current spending is a fairly serious problem. And it has a worrying projection in the time that we have to fix. It has increased spending by 14% in the last four years and revenue by only 8%.
Problems to carry out the projects?
We have money to invest, but if I were a private individual, I could build a restaurant, but I couldn’t open it because I don’t have money for staff or electricity. It is a problem, but it has a solution.
As?
We will seek more efficiency, we will reduce expenses.
Have you already imagined a government and with whom?
I would like the opposition parties to understand that they do not have to veto each other.
With PP and Commonly Can We?
Maria Mercè Martorell (PP) said during the campaign that she would agree with everyone, including the CUP. And this honors her. Martorell is a possibility, but also Jordi Collado (En Comú Podem). We have put people who are not from the PSC in municipal bodies; in Cooperation will be Collado.
The new POUM is one of the great unfinished business. He says he doesn’t want a classist urbanism…
And I keep it. We have municipally owned farms where we can build public housing, for example in Llevant, in the Vall de l’Arrabassada. In Ponent, in the Horta Gran, where ERC wanted to build, a green area will be built to link Ponent with the center. Terres Cavades I see clearly that it is an area of ??natural growth.
They associate it with an old way of building in Tarragona.
Terres Cavades has a cursed name, but the good thing is that in the POUM it is Vall del Llorito (laughs). When there was the Terres Cavades case, I was a kid. What do they explain to me?
Do you like the commitment to bike lanes and scooters made by the previous mayor?
I have asked engineering to explain to me all the projects in the bike lane portfolio and we have to reconsider them. I think the Pere Martell bike path was a mistake. We have to prioritize linking the URV campus with bike lanes and humanizing the N-340 to Altafulla.
And the skateboards?
They create security and mobility problems. We have an ordinance and we have to enforce it. I will not allow the free way that was made for the electric scooter companies. Tarragona is a city for walking and for urban mobility routes, by bus. Bicycles, too. We will make more dissuasive parking lots to start emptying the old town of cars. The city has to be for pedestrians.
Does Tarragona have more tourist travel?
Yes, but don’t panic. We can have many more tourists all year. We are not Salou nor do we want to be. We have the most beautiful beaches in Catalonia and they are not known.
More cruises?
Cruise ships are not a problem, we have to make them stay and spend in Tarragona; The problem could be the tourist flats. We are considering regulating them.
He has signed Pau Pérez, a trusted man of Ballesteros, as an adviser. Because?
None of us who have entered have governed; Pau’s is a commitment to experience. The decisions are made by me.
Y Ballesteros, vice president of the municipal water company (Ematsa). Why?
He knows everyone, people respect him; he will help us a lot with one of the great challenges, the drought. He worries me a lot.
Are you concerned about the decline in the social use of Catalan?
Yes. When I was little, we all watched TV3. He did more for the Catalan Son Goku than many of the laws of Parliament. We compete with youtubers and tiktokers who don’t speak Catalan. Generations like mine, who come from Spanish-speaking families and are bilingual, are in extinction.
What will the City Council do for Catalan?
I speak Catalan as mayor. If the Catalan administration doesn’t do it, who will? But the serious problem is that there is no leisure content in Catalan.
