Horrifying images of rats scurrying through the garbage in many neighborhoods of our city, in Valdebernardo, Tirso de Molina, Lavapiés…, of overflowing containers, of garbage scattered along streets and squares, which add to the extreme heat waves that we are experiencing this summer. The streets of Madrid are beginning to be impassable, because they are full of waste, the sports courts accumulate plastic and cans that are not collected, the litter bins are overflowing…, unfortunately, it is the usual image of Almeida’s Madrid, of a mayor who does not he cares about cleaning the streets and not about alleviating the consequences suffered by the people of Madrid due to the extremely high temperatures.
What can we expect from a mayor who has completely missed the opportunity he had to improve cleanliness with the new contracts? Well, the city is not cleaner. On the contrary, Madrid is the reflection of Almeida, of his total disinterest in management and in improving people’s lives, of his improvisations, of his laziness, of his lack of passion for Madrid and the people of Madrid. I wish we had had this possibility in the previous mandate to modify those leonine contracts that Ana Botella left armored nine years ago.
But no, Almeida prefers to dedicate himself to making comments about the Sánchez government, losing all the opportunities to transform the city and laughing at the endless proposals that we make to him from the opposition. And so for more than three years. Now, with the city charred and dirty, he has hung up the ‘Closed for Holidays’ sign.
Madrid is very dirty and rats roam freely because we have an incompetent mayor who does not know how to manage. By winning those contracts that came from the stage of the popular Ana Botella, Almeida could have acted to solve the dirt problems. The occasion was unbeatable: new contracts, without spending rules and with accounts that we left healthy during our government. However, he has only ‘made up’ the new contracts with some technological gadgets, forgetting and leaving out 325 interblock zones in 14 districts without cleaning, which will be very dirty for almost a year. Neighborhoods such as San Cristóbal de los Ángeles, Entrevías or La Elipa were left without litter bins and street sweepers and every day we see neglected streets like never before, which are causing public health problems such as rats.
This video has been recorded in Valdebernardo. Garbage does not have a vacation in Madrid and continues to occupy the streets without Almeida doing anything. It is an attack against the health of the neighbors and neighbors and another clear example of Almeida’s abandonment of the city.
Via: @busero20 pic.twitter.com/vKBC1qnTdB
– Rita Maestre 🌾 (@Rita_Maestre) July 31, 2022
Despite having all the possibilities within his reach, Almeida, as he does not have the cleanliness or health of Madrid among his priorities, has not provided sufficient material, human or economic resources. Thus, most of them are still considered secondary, which means that they are only cleaned every two days and that they are only washed once a week. It occurs in multiple neighborhoods of Usera, Carabanchel, Latina, Vallecas, Tetuán and in areas such as Montecarmelo, Las Tablas, Sanchinarro and Valdebebas. It’s incredible, Madrid doesn’t deserve this.
There is also inequality between districts in terms of spending on cleaning. The difference between Carabanchel and Chamberí is 40 euros per inhabitant per year, going from 75 euros in Carabanchel to 115 in Centro or Chamberí. The City Council always remembers that it has improved more in the southern and eastern districts, but the starting situation was so disparate that there are still important differences.
If we add the extreme heat waves that we are experiencing this summer to the dirt on the streets, the situation in Madrid is grotesque during these months. So far this summer, about 700 people have died in our community due to high temperatures. Every two to three, the most important parks in the city are closed due to a protocol that Almeida does not update; no measures are taken to reduce traffic; faulty fountains are not put into operation and no more are put into operation; there are closed municipal swimming pools; not to mention the 90,000 trees that the municipal government boasts of having planted, of which some 60,000 have been placed in vacant lots around the M-30 and M-40 that are drying up due to lack of irrigation.
It doesn’t make me laugh that people die because of the heat, or that my city is increasingly dirty, abandoned and aimless, or that Almeida denies climate change. But the mayor does laugh at our proposals to combat this climatic emergency and to protect the people of Madrid from the extreme heat that we are suffering in these months. Almeida is directly responsible for all this, but he is incapable of managing and governing because Madrid does not matter to him. We at Más Madrid do know how to do it to improve people’s lives and transform the city to tackle climate change.
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