Arona Council Extends Beach Safety, Fines Cleaning Firm Amid Contract Issues
Arona City Council's final meeting addressed critical issues with three major service contracts—beach safety, public building cleaning, and municipal maintenance—resulting in temporary extensions, company fines, and process restarts amid opposition criticism over planning and service delivery.
The Arona City Council's final meeting of the year dealt with fixing three important contracts. These contracts cover essential services like beach safety, cleaning public buildings, and maintaining municipal properties and roads.
These three contracts needed administrative and technical changes to ensure services continued without interruption as the financial year ended. However, some issues were not fully resolved.
A key discussion point was the contract for lifeguard and safety services on Arona's beaches.
First Deputy Mayor Clari Pérez (CC) explained that the tender for this service was issued on schedule. However, it was cancelled because the companies bidding for it did not submit a required legal document: an approved, published, and valid equality plan.
To fix this, the City Council decided to negotiate directly with companies and approved a temporary extension of the service until June 30. This ensures that beach services will continue without a break. Pérez expects the permanent contract to be awarded between January and February.
The socialist party group criticized the situation, saying it had gone too far and that better planning was needed to avoid such last-minute extensions.
The council meeting also discussed the 15,129,036 euro contract for waste management, cleaning, and disinfection services at schools and other municipal buildings. The Environmental and Public Services Commission proposed fining the company responsible for this service 12,002 euros twice, for serious failures in its work.
Opposition members pointed out that they had been asking for information on staff, resources, and service oversight for months. They warned that the problems continued in a contract that affects schools and municipal buildings. They also noted that the fines were small compared to the total value of the contract.
Pérez defended the fines, stating they were based on technical assessments. Luis García, spokesperson for Más por Arona, stressed the need for stronger monitoring and control of this and other council contracts to ensure services are delivered properly.
The third contract discussed was for maintaining municipal buildings and public roads, which involved mostly technical details. The City Council decided to restart the process for this contract to fix errors found in how certain parts of the contract were presented.
The opposition highlighted that the decisions made at the meeting directly affect the daily lives of Arona's residents, particularly in important areas.