Nov 11, 2020 | Councils News, Environment, Municipal Services, Infraestructures, parks and gardens, News
The works have been carried out thanks to a subsidy from the Provincial Council of Alicante, with a budget of almost 50.000 euros
The Mayor of Redován, Nely Ruiz, and the Councillor for the Environment and Municipal Services, Ramón López, presented this morning the completed work on the rainwater drainage system in Calle Menéndez Pelayo. The purpose of these works is to “direct the rainwater that runs with great force down the steep slope of the Redován mountain towards the nearby ravines”, which causes the dragging of the water into the town centre “and damages the houses on this street, as happened during the DANA or in other episodes of heavy rain”, explained López.
In this way, the councillor said that “after the clearing of the area, the path has been fenced off, a place that is very much used by the residents, as well as having a canalisation wall built and the road surface conditioned, as it was very badly damaged during the heavy rains in September last year”. Likewise, these actions “will prevent the acts of vandalism that, unfortunately, the houses in this area had been suffering for a long time”, added the mayor.
The work has been financed with 49.800 euros, obtained through a grant from the Provincial Council of Alicante. The mayor, Nely Ruiz, has assured that the collaboration of the provincial administration has been indispensable, since it solves “a situation that seriously affected the residents of this area of Redován, and that finally they are going to have the security in their homes in case there are new periods of strong rains”. The first councillor also indicated that “as a Town Hall and as a government team, it is our main objective to continue working to solve, as far as we can, the problems that most affect our neighbours”.
Nov 6, 2020 | Councils News, Health service, News
- The municipal government team once again sends a letter to the Councillor for Health and the Orihuela Health Department
The Mayor of Redován, Nely Ruiz, has announced the sending of two letters to both the Councillor for Health, Ana Barceló, and the Director of Primary Care of the Department of Health of Orihuela, Rosario Sansano, with the aim of “once again demanding patient care in the right conditions for the neighbours who use the Redován doctor’s office”, reported Ruiz.
The first councillor said that the situation in this health centre, which has not been providing a good service since the beginning of the pandemic, “has got worse in the last two weeks, since the health staff is very limited due to the effects of the Covid-19”, and the accumulation of work is not enough to attend to the number of people who use the facilities every day since “at the moment we only have two doctors and a paediatrician, when they should be twice as many”. This has the effect, as Ruiz has indicated, “that calls for telephone appointments are not made, directing many users to the health centre in Callosa, when they should not be”.
In addition, the shortage of doctors means that it takes longer for people to make appointments for the PCR tests, which, as they do not receive a call from the centre and without health advice, “continue with their normal lives by going out on the streets, with the consequent risk of contagion among the population, or choosing to carry out the test in the private health service”, said Ruiz.
This situation is compounded by long queues and waiting times at the door of the clinic and calls that are not answered by the switchboard, situations already reported in previous meetings held by those responsible for the health department of Orihuela and also to the Ministry of Health.
With this scenario, “the complaints of citizens who have to suffer this deficient attention logically follow each other,” said the Mayor, who added that “we need this situation to be expedited and a solution given as soon as possible, because having a medical office that does not work and insufficient health personnel who cannot cope with their patients, in these times of pandemic in which we find ourselves, is an unacceptable situation.
Oct 28, 2020 | Councils News, News, Transparency and citizen Participation
The project is part of the ‘Europe for Citizens’ programme and could obtain funding of almost 150.000 euros
The social and labour inclusion of young people with difficulties through their participation in European Union policies is the objective pursued by the project that Redován Town Council has presented to the European Commission, as reported by the town’s Councillor for Citizen Participation, Adrián Ballester. The Council is leading a consortium of organisations from seven countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Lithuania, the Netherlands and France) which have joined together “to improve the inclusion of young people who neither study nor work and who are at risk of exclusion as a result of factors such as unemployment, aggravated by the Covid-19 health crisis”, said Ballester.
The project is part of the ‘Europe for Citizens’ programme and, if selected, could receive funding of up to ?148,000 from the European Commission. The initiative has activities in all seven countries, and the international partners include the French municipality of Saint-Aubin de Médoc, with which Redován is twinned and has strong ties of friendship and cooperation.
The councillor explains that “we hope to involve the whole municipality in the project and encourage citizen participation in Redován, with a special involvement in public life for young people so that they are aware of the opportunities offered by the European Union in terms of training and study, work or mobility”. Another of the objectives, said the mayor, is to “position Redován at an international level and demonstrate the municipality’s ability to manage European funds.
The project is scheduled to begin in March 2021 and end in September 2022, “provided that health conditions with respect to Covid-19 allow it”, Ballester explained, adding that “we hope that the young people of the municipality will become involved in this initiative and understand that the European Union and public bodies are something more, they are already institutions that are at the service of citizens to help them in every way possible”.
Oct 23, 2020 | Councils News, Municipal Services, Infraestructures, parks and gardens, News
- The service will be provided seven days a week, instead of the current six, and will also have advanced and more modern machinery
- The next plenary session will launch the call for tenders for the service, and once the specifications have been published, companies will be able to submit tenders
The government team in the Redován Town Hall will take to the next plenary session the start of the tender for the waste collection and street cleaning service with the approval of the specifications that will govern the contract. Once the plenary session is over, the documentation will be sent to the Public Procurement Portal so that companies can apply for the tender. This was announced at a press conference by the town’s mayor, Nely Ruiz, and the councillor for finance, Adrián Ballester, accompanied by the councillor for municipal services, Ramón López, who stressed that the service was being updated to meet the needs of the population and the measures needed to protect the environment, with the introduction of the fifth container for organic waste and the increase in the number of containers for recycling containers, plastics, paper, cardboard and glass.
The head of the municipal Treasury Department explained that a specialised firm has been responsible for preparing the specifications and the operating project to be fulfilled by the company that is awarded the contract, which is one of the most important contracts for the Redondo City Council and which will significantly improve the service currently provided. Ballester added that the process will be transparent, since the Contracting Committee will include both municipal technicians who are familiar with the local situation and technicians from the Alicante Provincial Council, who are specialists in this type of contract. Once awarded, the contract will be audited by an external agent during its execution.
Redován Town Council is putting the contract out to public tender for a sum of 432.924,74 euros (without VAT) per year, and wants to incorporate the latest technology and most environmentally friendly methods into this service. Therefore, the collection of the organic fraction separated from the rest of the waste will be included through the implementation of the brown container in the streets of the municipality. “We will be one of the first municipalities in the Vega Baja to incorporate this legal and environmental requirement into a contract”, explained the mayor, Nely Ruiz, who added that “our aim is to have the best technological systems to provide an effective and rapid response to all needs”. In addition, the first mayor has assured that once the service has been set up, the rubbish will be collected from Monday to Sunday, “and not six days like now”.
Another of the points to be highlighted is containment. “On the one hand we are looking to increase recycling and transform Redován into a green municipality, which is why we want to increase the number of containers both for rest and organic waste and for lightweight packaging and paper and cardboard”, said Ruiz, who added that “we want the waste to be collected two days a week, instead of one day”. In this sense, it will also be included as a requirement that Redován has two fixed containers for the removal of pruning and other waste, although the tender price does not include the treatment and disposal of waste assumed by the City Council.
The mayor has assured that “in addition to having the most advanced and modern machinery, the company must have a facility in Redován to make the cleaning of the municipality and the collection of waste more effective and have a direct contact with the citizens”. There will also be GPS control of all vehicles used for waste collection.
The council of the Treasury, Adrian Ballester, explained that the industrial benefit of this tender is quantified at 23.192,40 euros, “since the rest of the costs are the general costs of any company (payment of payroll, purchase of trucks, etc.). Ballester has assured that with this industrial benefit, 5% of the contract, “we do not assume any risk and all the responsibility for managing possible worker absences, accidents or vehicle breakages is transferred to the company”. In this sense, specialized companies “can also buy vehicles cheaper than the City Council, as they buy more”. The also first deputy mayor said that “our goal is to improve as much as we can a service, which is provided in the same conditions since 2003, so we will provide more hours of service, installation of dog bag dispensers, extra buckets or increase the number of containers.
Group participation
Redován’s government team has worked on the new urban waste collection and street cleaning contract with opposition groups. In this sense, there was a Board of Spokespersons in which the entire tender was explained. Afterwards, individualised meetings were called with each group where the opinions and suggestions of the different political groups were collected. These improvements have led to changes in the specifications so that they were consensual. The mayor, Nely Ruiz, has assured in this respect that “we are before one of the most important contracts of this legislature, for that reason we have needed the consensus of all to take out this tender, since the only thing that matters to us is the well-being of our neighbours, to improve their quality of life and to do it with total transparency”.
Oct 21, 2020 | Councils News, Municipal Services, Infraestructures, parks and gardens, News
- The City Council will finance with 20% the total cost of maintaining a basic service such as urban waste collection and street cleaning
The government team of Redován City Council will take to the next plenary session, scheduled for next week, the update of the rubbish rate to adjust it to the reality and the needs of the service in the municipality. At the moment, the waste collection service is causing the Redován Town Council to have a significant budget deficit, although the local government plans to continue financing up to 20% of the total cost of this basic service to prevent the increase in the rate from causing greater problems for the domestic economy of Redován residents. For this reason, the increase in the fee will be 22.55 euros per year in the bill, from 76.45 euros to 99 euros the total amount to be paid in each year.
The mayor of Finance, Adrian Ballester, explained that “this is an important measure, because we want to adjust the current budgetary parameters, as the City Council assumes 20% of the total cost of the service. In this sense, the objective is to alleviate, at least in part, the deficit that the municipal coffers register “and that the neighbours do not have loss of economic capacity, since the increase will mean only 1.87 euros per month per household. Also, Ballester has assured that the City Council makes a great effort since it pays part of the service “and we do not consider to stop doing it, to help the neighbours in a difficult time, which also means the pandemic at this time and without having yet overcome the effects of the economic crisis that devastated our region and our people for more than a decade.
The change in the rate of solid waste collection has also been approached in a complex manner, and will have a different application in the commercial and business sphere than in the domestic sphere. “The generation of waste in the case of industries is very different to what families produce, so we believe it is essential and fair to adjust the parameters in this regard,” said the councillor of Finance.
The also spokesman of the municipal government has informed that one of the objectives of the Town Hall is to fulfill as it should and with all the guarantees with the basic services in the municipality. And he defended that the Council is making an “enormous effort” to adjust all the economic parameters and that the services continue, as happened with the water. In this case, Ballester indicated that the government team wants the waste collection service to improve as well and that the residents will see how, little by little, it changes and is modernised, adding that “the modification of rates is thus in line with what other municipalities in the Vega Baja region have”.
