The mayor of Velilla de San Antonio faces the Madrid Audiencia over town-planning misconduct
The Socialist mayor Antonia Alcázar and three other municipal officers are being tried for ignoring dozens of neighbours' complaints about a hospitality establishment.
Trial of Velilla's mayor for ignoring noise complaints over years
The Provincial Audiencia of Madrid is trying on Wednesday the mayor of Velilla de San Antonio, Antonia Alcázar, accused of a continuing offence of town-planning and environmental misconduct, reports El Mundo. Sitting alongside her in the dock are the councillor for Housing, Joaquín Panadero, a former environmental officer and an urban planning technician.
The Madrid Public Prosecutor's Office is requesting a sentence of three years' imprisonment for Alcázar and disqualification from exercising any public office with town-planning and environmental responsibilities for twelve years. The charges stem from the municipal authority's failure to act on repeated complaints from neighbours about noise and disturbances caused by a hospitality establishment in the town.
According to the fiscal's statement of provisional conclusions, the establishment had a licence for activity as a restaurant but not for the use of outdoor spaces. Despite this, in those facilities "all types of events were held, such as parties, weddings, communions and christenings", with "the use of fireworks and high-powered music equipment" and breaching closing times, which caused "serious disturbances to the neighbours".
The public prosecution service documents at least twelve complaints filed by neighbours with the municipal authority, in addition to multiple incident reports from the Local Police. These actions "only resulted in four disciplinary proceedings", in none of which "any decision was reached". The proceedings remain stalled.
The fiscal argues that the accused "deliberately failed to fulfil their obligations regarding town-planning discipline and the protection of the environment and the health of the neighbours" and that, as officials of the municipal authority, they did not exercise their inspection powers or adopt any precautionary measures or decisions to restore town-planning legality.
Alcázar, Socialist mayor of the Madrid municipality, was acquitted some years ago of another charge of misconduct. She is the sister of María Gertrudis, secretary to former Government President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to whom the judge investigating the Plus Ultra case attributes an "essential operational role" in the alleged network of influence-peddling in which the judge places the former Socialist leader.
Source: El Mundo