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Vicent Grimalt: "We need progressive governments that look at the interests of the majority of citizens"

May 23 from 2023 - 08: 40

In 2015 he appeared for the first time as head of the list of the PSPV in an election in Dénia and wins, being able to govern the city in coalition. In 2019 he ratified the trust of the municipality and came out the winner again, this time with an absolute majority. He doesn't need anyone else and he takes charge of the City Council, being the most responsible for him in a difficult legislature. Now, he appears again for the third time with the intention of once again receiving enough support from the population to finish the transformation of the city they defend.

Vicent Grimalt awaits us in the Arxiduc Carles square, the place that the socialist candidate has chosen to carry out this interview. We sat, at his request, on the terrace of a local cafeteria. He wears two badges on his lapel: the one for the 2030 Agenda, which he usually wears in the most formal meetings, and the heart that the PSPV spends for the campaign. Because, again, it's time for the campaign.

ASK. Another campaign as a mayoral candidate after eight years as mayor. Isn't it exhausting?

ANSWER. Yes. The older you get the more exhausting it is. But they are three or four weeks every four years and you have to face it, with enthusiasm and desire. But exhausting it is.

Q. Why do you want to be mayor again?

R. Among other things, because the people who are with me asked me to, and because throughout this legislature, due to the pandemic, we have been left with projects that we all want to finish, so we decided that I would present myself again.

Q. Are you still the same candidate who ran in 2015?

R. Yes. Well, older and with less hair, but yes.

Q. How was the Dénia that you found in 2015?

R. Easy to see: there was nothing. A Dénia stopped, with a ton of projects to do, especially the Trust Plan that had not even been able to do projects as it played, and we had to do them ourselves. Without a city project in any sense.

It was also exciting. Arrive practically from scratch and start doing things.

Q. How is Dénia now?

R. A very different Dénia. In which many works have been carried out, a lot of space has been pedestrianised, making it for people, for children... Much greener! And with a very clear future such as the university issue or everything that is being done from Tourism, with a General Plan approved when we didn't have it for many years, with policies for children and youth that did not exist before we arrived because there were no projects... With much less debt, too, than when we arrived.

I think it is a new Dénia that people on the street notice.

Q. Why is another Vicent Grimalt government needed?

R. It is not that another Vicent Grimalt government is needed. It is that progressive, left-wing governments are needed. Not only here, but in countless towns, cities, and in the Community. They are the only ones who make social policies, public education, public health, and everything that citizens need.

It is not a question of it being me or someone else. It is a question of the type of policy that some do, looking at their friends or the interests of who knows who, and others that we do looking at the interests of the majority of citizens.

P. Of this legislature, with an absolute majority of the PSPV, it has been said that there has been a lack of dialogue. There has been talk of a roller.

R. They have something to say. But it is very easy to see the percentage of points approved unanimously in all the plenary sessions that have been held. I would say it is more than 90%. It is clear that there are always differences, and especially in the parties that are not progressive, but the vast majority of points, both in commissions and in plenary sessions, have been approved unanimously.

But of course, they cannot say "how good they are, how well they do it" and then stand for election. We have held the city debate, we have encouraged public participation in plenary sessions… We have made an open and transparent policy.

Q. When asked why another government of yours would be needed, I have noticed that you have answered that what is needed are progressive, left-wing governments. But you have not said PSPV governments. If necessary, do you think a new Acord del Castell would be possible?

R. We have always been willing to continue working with Compromís. In fact, in this legislature we spoke with them and we proposed it to them. But they had to realize that we were already twelve councilors, and they were three. And the councilors who had left on behalf of the PSPV had to have a delegation. We could not do as in the other legislature, when we were seven and four.

They did not want to see it, they believed that in the opposition they could do more work, well, they were there. Now, I suppose that the agreement would be possible. For me. But I can't get inside their heads to know what they think or what they would do.

We are very clear about what we would do. They don't know.

Q. Hasn't the relationship broken?

R. No. I believe that in this legislature there has been a super cordial relationship with all the groups. With everyone. We have differences, of course, but in the plenary sessions and in the meetings there have been no problems.

In fact, in the pandemic we all work hand in hand. Obviously, the burden was on us, the delegations. But Zoom meetings that we made thousands.

Q. When there is a candidacy for re-election, to hold the same position, there is something that worries me: the promises that are made, the program, aren't they things that could have been done in previous years?

R. They could not have been done because, like many works, when elections arrive they are not finished. It must be taken into account that during this legislature there have been things to do, but not because we have not worked, but because there has been a barbaric price increase that has modified the budgets of many works that we had started, or that we were going to put out to tender , and that we have been deserted.

The pandemic has lasted much longer than a year, but we spent a whole year dedicated solely and exclusively to seeking and modifying credits and budgets so that social services had the necessary injection of money to help families. And to companies.

There are always things to do, but Dénia, like all cities, evolve. Here, for example, we have nine thousand plus houses in the Montgo They are not connected to the sewer. This cannot be done in a legislature. In Marines y Les Rotes I don't know how many are still to be connected. Well, any day they will slap us from Europe and we will be left trembling. It cannot be allowed, but neither can you do it in a legislature.

It must be remembered, in 2007-2008, the government of Paqui Viciano obtained eleven million euros from the Xuquer Hydrographic Confederation of the Ministry, to build the sewage system for Les Rotes-Montgó, and after the motion of no confidence... That is proof palpable differences in how things are done. That is how the Montgó was left, with the roads in a mess, and we have been the ones who began to do everything that they had not done in terms of pipes and connecting the sewage system. In Les Rotes they didn't even start it, and they let the eleven million euros we had with a subsidy lose. Well, those are the differences. And you can't do this in a legislature.

Q. And what is the project that you have missed doing the most? The pending subject?

R. The biggest pending subject we have is urban transport. It has remained hanging there, although the final approval of what the project is is already going in this month's plenary session. It has taken us months because there have been many modifications and it is something that is very expensive. It is going to cost a lot of money to the city of Dénia. Around 700.000 euros a year. But we have to get it going.

Q. The General Structural Plan is one of the greatest milestones that you have achieved this legislature. In discount time, with discrepancies on the part of the entire opposition and doubts on the part of a percentage of the citizenry. It is the PGE that Dénia needs, you have said. But is it the PGE you wanted?

R. Is it the PGE that Dénia needed? Yes, obviously. And yes, it is the one we liked. Maybe not 100%, because there have been things that we would have liked to do, but for different reasons we couldn't. Is it the PGE of the citizenship? Look, I would give you one of those challenges that Mrs. [Pepa] Font does to me: ask on the street how many people are interested in or know what a general plan is, and 95% will tell you "I don't know what this is." what is it".

Of course it is necessary. That the opposition does not agree? Obviously, because there is a sector of the opposition that had made another plan. And the proof is the attempts that they made until 2015 to approve general plans that from any supra-municipal administration knocked them down because they said they were crazy, that this could not be done. But they erre that erre. Among them the lady Pepa Font.

We are happy with the work that has been done. And it is not a plan that has been approved at the discount. We will finish being councilors on June 17. Until that day, we continue to be councilors and the city has to carry on.

Q. There are some points in the program that cause that feeling of déjà vu what we talked about before For example, Diana's Bosc. Now, yes?

R. It is one of those things that we would have to ask the team that came out of the motion of no confidence. Why did you lose seven million euros of FEDER funds? One of the projects, which I would say was around two million euros, was the Bosc de Diana. And he let it lose, because except for the Plaça del Consell and the Ayuntamiento, they had to return everything else because they did not carry out any work. Neither the Hort de Morand, nor the Bosc de Diana, nor I don't know how many other things that were in the Dénia Futur, that I don't even remember anymore.

But now yes, we have two lines of Next Generation aid, from Europe too, which will allow us to start the works and the project of what will be the great green area of ​​Dénia.

Q. How did those Next Generation that we have heard so much arrive?

R. Well, because we have the projects done. We were very clear about what we wanted to do and we have been able to manage it with Turismo Comunitat Valenciana or with the Ministry. We have known how to work, we have had good support and we have presented things well.

This is not that you project and they give it to you. There are many municipalities that have been left out. Our projects have been valued, and they have been valued well. So they have given us the money.

Q. How much money are we talking about?

R. Nine million. Nine thirty.

Q. In addition to being mayor, you have been a councilor for Tourism and you intend to repeat. In Dénia, where Tourism is so important. Isn't that very ambitious? Where do you find the time for everything?

R. You take time from where it is needed because we are councilors 24 hours a day. What must be taken into account is that in Tourism there is a team of people with a lot of experience. As in most departments, you can mark some things, but if you have people behind you who respond and have things very clear, it is easier to carry.

Q. What work remains to be done in terms of tourism?

R. It's not a matter of pending jobs. The works are started. The DTI (Smart Tourist Destination) is underway, many digitization projects... And pending to continue doing the work in the current line. Because Tourism is something that is very transversal for the entire city, since it covers all the departments, but it is something that moves. Tourism is not always the same. You have to keep inventing and keep making things. Go adapting.

We have achieved this legislature to have the recognition of Tourist Municipality of the Valencian Community. That there are only six in the entire community. Because the work that others have not done has been done. The SICTED seal of quality of the Ministry, for example. We have 80 throughout the city, including restaurants, hotels... Even the Local Police have it. We are the third municipality in Spain with the most SICTEDs. It is for something

Q. Is it reliable that Dénia's economy is so dependent on tourism?

R. No. Nothing is ever reliable. See if it was dodgy in the days of the raisin, or later, in the days of the toy. They are cycles, stages, but we have to work so that it continues to be reliable and that what happened to us in the other periods that I have mentioned does not happen.

We have projects like the one at Ciudad Universitaria, which is an important alternative, at least in terms of seasons of the year that are not those when people come to the beach. There is nothing reliable as long as you bet on a “monoculture”. What will happen to him in Almussafes the day Ford closes?

Q. You don't even want to hear about the tourist tax, but it has been approved by the Botànic.

R. Since I'm not in Les Corts, I don't know how the negotiations went. We have always been clear that in Dénia it cannot be applied. In Benidorm it is very easy, in Valencia too, because they have many hotels and it is where it is easy to apply the tax. But in Dénia it is very complicated, and I do not think that today it is the solution. Turismo Comunitat Valenciana already has a local cooperation bottom line aimed solely at tourist municipalities. This is one of the injections of money that we have to get.

Q. You have been advancing little by little on the subject of the University City. Will it be what we have already known, or is it just the beginning?

R. We only know the beginning. We know that the CDT has held several conferences with people who are studying in Alicante. With the people who are doing Gastronomy Sciences there, what is to come. But to do this we need an infrastructure that is not what we have yet. It will start being, when it is finished, the house of Torrecremada. But what is important is that classroom and the building that may have to be built in the area going up to La Pedrera. And the intention is that in the medium term, because it is not something that happens from today to tomorrow, to ask the University of Alicante for some other degree to expand that space. We can't just stop there, but it's not something we can see from one day to the next.

Q. And where are the students going to live?

R. Along with the aforementioned classroom, the forecast is to try to build a student residence. We have a million and a half from the Next Generation fund to carry out the projects. And we have to do them, because what you don't do in, I think it's three years, then you have to pay the money back. But we, like the government, are not going to do the motion of no confidence and return the European funds.

Q. What do you feel when some friends tell you that their son or daughter has had to go live in an inland town because renting is impossible in Dénia?

R. Impotence. It is a very serious problem. Not only in tourist areas, in many areas it is happening. It is a problem we have to face. We have already sent a letter to the Ministry asking them to make available to us the land where the houses of the former railway workers are located so that a social housing area can be built.

Another thing that we will do, which we have tried at times but it has never come to fruition, is to ask the Generalitat for those houses that they have "inherited" here, so that they can enable them and make them available to the people.

But it is a much more complicated problem. Doing only a building of 40 houses does not solve the problem. It is a problem of tourist housing, of how the market is, and this, sooner or later, we will have to regulate.

Q. If the possibility of regulating the rental price were on the table, would you be willing to study it?

R. Of course we would be willing. And if I'm not mistaken, last week the Housing Law was approved in Madrid, in the Cortes Generales. From there you have to start putting your batteries.

What there is no right is that in some areas of Dénia there are thousands of empty and closed homes practically all year round, waiting for the summer to get the same as the whole year in two months, and then people have no places to live. It has to be regulated somehow.

Q. Do you think there will be a northbound tram or train for the next four years? Because honestly, it sounds a bit smoky.

R. There will be a tram What is not what we would like? I have always said it too. But there will be a TRAM from here to Gandia because Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat already has the order to start the work. I guess they've already started.

It is not what we wanted and what we have always claimed. But hey, it's something.

Q. For a few weeks there have been constant conflicts and accusations between the candidacy of the PP and the PSPV. What's going on?

R. I don't know. Ask the candidate of the Popular Party. We take the usual line, which is to explain the program to the people, explain what we have done, and put aside the attacks as the Popular Party is doing.

He is a person who was in the legislature from 99 to 2003 with power, because everyone knows that Mrs. Font de florero never goes. She where she goes, she goes to cut the cod. She was also one of the architects of the motion of no confidence until she was thrown out in December 2014. What she is trying now is to discredit what we are doing. Let her say that we haven't done anything for eight years… Let her say what she did for twelve years!

Q. You have chosen this place, Archduke Carlos, to do the interview. Represents?

R. The policies that we socialists have made. As Maria Josep [Ripoll] explained during the President's visit, let us not forget that all the public squares that Dénia has today have been made when the Socialist Party has governed. With Paqui Viciano the plaça del Convent de Sant Antoni or Mariana Pineda, for example. And we are here, the one from the West... We have done what the Popular Party or the right has never done.

There is a lot of amnesia with our projects. The Municipal Library, the Rafael Chirbes Reading Agency, the athletics track, the Diego Mena lawn, the reform of the House of Culture, Carrer Major... Avenida Joan Fuster and the train crossing, for example. Nobody remembers how Joan Fuster was four years ago. A lot of things that seem like forever but have been done now. Harbor lighting! Nobody remembers this. You couldn't go there and now look at the light there is. Or the arrangements of streetlights on the Montgó.

Work has been done a lot. Whoever wants to deny it, well this already...

Q. What makes your project different from all the others on the table?

R. That we do not sell smoke in any of the proposals that we carry. As we have done so far, our program is 100% achievable and we are clear that we can do it. We will never say something we cannot deliver. Others sell other proposals that we would like to know how they are going to do it. We have it very clear.

P. You win the mayoralty and you appear the first day in your office. What would be the first thing you would do?

R. Keep working. The next day I will be at the town hall, like most days, at 08:30 or 09:00 to continue working. If we have to be there afterwards, we will continue with the notebook we have. The same. It's an advantage because you don't have to start from scratch like we did in 2015.

Comments
  1. Pere says:

    Well, it gives me that among the little they have done is PROHIBIT THE HOGUERAS OF SAN JUAN to protect the Plover???? and impose CATALAN on us in all public places.
    For the rest, the same lies as his leader SANCHINFLAS, the friend of the Bilduetarra philoterrorists.
    Vicent, let the Plover vote for you.

  2. Pillar says:

    !! INSULT OUR INTELLIGENCE!!

  3. saint pagan says:

    The interests of the citizens... well, well... will you raise your salary again when you enter the government? Do you want us to pay you more?

  4. Roy says:

    Let's be honest Grimalt is only for Grimalt – very clever man in deception (also known as bullshit)

  5. Engel says:

    You can tell that he likes to show off his badge and pin. He puts on the decorations himself, how ridiculous. He reminds me of other regimens that I won't mention.

    • PERE QUART says:

      The first thing this redneck did when he got an absolute majority was raise his salary by 30%. Then a lot of talk but Denia is filling up with botch jobs. The path of the broken ones dyed in blue, a square repaired viewpoint instead of a round one, the marineta full of algae all year round. A lot of environmental talk but fecal discharges directly into the port. Free exhaust mopeds all day. That's all in Catalan. That these socialists hate the Valencian language, they are servants of the Catalan secessionists.
      leave you scoundrel

    • Daniel González says:

      Just the 2030 acenda pin says a lot that they are part of the global progressive consensus, do not pollute or consume and eat crickets, yes, in India, China or the USA, which are the great polluters, it is better not to say anything. That we pay the middle and working class based on abusive taxes for the foolishness of the 4 world bosses who set the global agenda to follow. While at the local level the usual, very high taxes to remodel the 4 streets of the center of always and the rest I remember to visit me. Insane town with everything in dust, see the police station, the seedy station, the health center or the streets without streetlights or sewers and with the firm destroyed. Of course, go by bike so as not to contaminate, something that seems perfect to me, but without bike lanes and the 4 that there are with potholes and destroyed, risking your life among the cars

  6. Tony says:

    Vendefumes

  7. Hans-Joachim Kuhl says:

    Keine Parkplätze, die Stadt and vor allem die Aussenbezirke dreckig, hören Sie besser auf and lassen andere regieren.
    Denia braucht sie nicht.

  8. Hans-Joachim Kuhl says:

    Keine Parkplätze, die Stadt and vor allem die Aussenbezirke dreckig, hören Sie besser auf and lassen andere regieren.
    Denia braucht sie nicht.

  9. Diego says:

    Spectacular, says the mayor who has granted the most building permits in the history of Denia.
    And that leaves forever the last front line plots with a very large urbanization.

  10. Luis says:

    "There is no right that in areas of Dénia there are thousands of empty and closed homes practically all year round"

    Just for this phrase he deserves no one to vote for him. And the one who doesn't understand why: Thank you for contributing to making society worse every day.
    It is called Real Estate Tourism Speculation and the Town Halls grant the licenses upon payment with their corresponding commission and now he is naive that he does not find out anything….

    • Luis says:

      Headline change: "Progressive governments are needed that look at the interests of the majority of citizens"
      They all sell themselves as progressives who look out for the interests of the citizens… They are looking for votes. What are they going to say? The truth? Why not vote for them?


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