Tension over the rubbish tax forces Vélez-Málaga council meeting to be adjourned

The council meeting, marked from the outset by the presence of numerous residents and shopkeepers, was eventually adjourned before the agenda had been completed, amidst protests, derisive applause and shouts of ‘out, out’. The trigger came during the urgent business section, when a request to include in the debate a proposal relating to the suspension of bills was rejected.

The session was preceded by a rally outside the Town Hall against the refuse collection charge, attended by local residents, shopkeepers and the self-employed.

Some of them then entered the council chamber, which was almost full, with discontent already evident over the bills and the amounts being charged. Tension flared when José Pino, spokesperson for Andalucía Por Sí, took the floor to argue for the urgency of a motion aimed at freezing the charge whilst its application was being clarified.

The proposal was not on the regular agenda. For this reason, before discussing its content, the town hall needed to approve its consideration as a matter of urgency. Pino sought to make this point clear to those present: that first vote did not yet decide whether or not the charge would be suspended, but merely whether the motion could be included in the sitting and debated at a later date.

Before calling for the vote, the mayor, Jesús Lupiáñez, announced that he would provide an explanation once the result was known. “I will give an explanation after the vote,” he said. The opposition groups supported the urgent motion, while members of the governing coalition abstained. The motion therefore failed to secure the necessary support to be included on the agenda and as a result, its content was neither debated nor put to a vote.

It was immediately afterwards that the atmosphere became much more tense. From the public gallery, sarcastic applause and shouts of ‘out, out’ could be heard, while several people rose from their seats to reproach the local councillors for what had happened.

Lupiáñez then attempted to provide the explanations he had announced prior to the vote, but the constant interruptions made it almost impossible for him to address those present, while various local residents and shopkeepers shouted out about their individual circumstances and the problems they claim to be experiencing with their bills.

The mayor repeatedly called for silence in an attempt to restore the normal course of the meeting. “This is not a public meeting,” he went so far as to warn in response to outbursts from the public, but the jeers and protests continued to the point where neither the Chair nor the members of the council themselves were able to speak normally.

Faced with the impossibility of restoring order, Lupiáñez eventually adjourned the meeting and then left the chamber amid renewed shouts of ‘out, out’, shaking his head as he exited. However, his departure did not immediately clear the chamber. For a few minutes, councillors from both the governing coalition and the opposition remained in their seats as conversations and recriminations continued. Shortly afterwards, they began to stand up and some politicians approached the residents to speak to them and try to calm things down.

The controversy over the tax had already sparked political manoeuvring before the session began. The Independent Pro-Municipality Group of Torre del Mar (GIPMTM), a coalition partner of the PP in the local government, had previously announced that it would table a motion in the meeting to suspend the tax bills relating to economic activities, although it ultimately backtracked and did not table the motion after the council agreed to open a channel of communication with the tax collection department to review any potential irregularities identified in certain cases.

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