Town Without Pity: Pollensa

Pity Pollensa. A town of genuine artistic and cultural heritage. A town of churches and squares, of 365 steps, of the brooding presence of the Puig Maria. A town with a resort, Puerto Pollensa, which holds a place in early Mallorcan tourism of the last century and which has brought out the inner poet in visitors who have stopped to marvel at the bay and who have crowned the port (the "moll") with the jewels of the grandest majesty among Mallorca's resorts.

Pity Pollensa. A town of debt, of protest, of division.

Rare is the day when there is not some news of trouble in Pollensa. The latest, that regarding the lack of funds to kit out a day centre or to open a new pre-school nursery, is just another day in Pollensa. Pity Pollensa and pity its poor mayor. Beleaguered is an overused word, but it can apply to the mayor. Literally on occasions. What are alternatives to beleaguered? Beset, harassed, besieged. In June this year the mayor was besieged. He was in an elevated bunker in the town hall building in Puerto Pollensa while demonstrators shouted outside and at one point scaled the rampart steps to the balcony next to the office.

Pity the poor mayor. He has the look of someone beset by problems. He carries a sense of awkwardness, gaucheness perhaps, in a body he doesn't seem to quite fit. It's not his fault, like many of Pollensa's problems aren't actually his fault, but no one seems much inclined to excuse him. I passed him one day in Pollensa town and said hello. He smiled cautiously. Perhaps he was just happy, surprised even, that someone had given him the time of day. He had his hands in his pockets, labouring on the incline up to the town hall building, newly restored at a cost of over two million euros. He wouldn't have remembered me, or maybe he had, as the one who had taken a photo of him in that Puerto Pollensa bunker, one that had hinted at anxiety. Or the photo of him as he had laughed when confronting the demonstrators on the balcony. A militant next to me said, "look, he's laughing, laughing at us". I didn't think so. It was the laugh of nervousness.

The awkwardness of Joan Cerdà, as much as the awkwardness of the difficulties Pollensa has been encountering, contrasts with the assertive tallness of the basketball-playing mayor of Alcúdia, a neighbouring town which, to the bemusement of many in Pollensa, appears to benefit from infrastructure improvements and political calm, notwithstanding some awkward "questions" regarding the construction of the new Can Ramis building. Alcúdia's advance rankles with the backward-stepping pollencins.

The mayor inherited problems when he came into office in 2007. Go back to a period soon after he had first plonked himself in the mayoral seat and you will find that the newly opposition Partido Popular was denouncing the state of cleanliness and maintenance of streets in Puerto Pollensa. This was one of the grievances of the protesters of early summer. It's an old problem, one that the mayor is actually seeking to rectify with a new cleaning contract.

This might sound as if I am acting as an apologist for the mayor. Not so. He hasn't helped himself. He didn't help himself by a failure to consult when attempting to push through a pedestrianisation scheme in 2008, one that had to be abandoned. He didn't help himself earlier this summer, after the protest, by seemingly seeking to create division amongst associations in the port, each with a competing agenda that he successfully exposed.

Inadvertently though, he has also succeeded in creating a realisation that consensus, rather than division, is necessary amongst those in the port who represent opposition to the town hall's failings. La Veu d'eu Moll (voice of the port) is a new association and campaign that will hope to bring consensus to bear on the mayor. Its website will invite participation, but, in so doing, it too runs the risk of division. A Facebook campaign, highlighting examples of uncleanliness, rubbish and other issues in the port and in the town, has not met with universal approval. It has been accused of creating a negative image, just as this article might meet with the same accusation or the new website be similarly criticised.

Such defensiveness, such protectiveness of the refulgent splendour of Pollensa and the port is understandable. But some of those who do the defending will have been on the protest in June, a protest that was hardly the best image for the port, one that may be repeated at the end of the season, doubtless with the same dual-standard protesters. Moreover, presented with what is portrayed, rightly or wrongly, as an inept town hall administration, what should people who care for their town do, especially if they perceive inertia or intransigence? The directness of internet campaigning can be persuasive in a way that a caveat-loaded denial - "I know there are problems but" - is not.

Pollensa is not unique in Mallorca in being indebted and in being confronted with issues of faltering tourism, anti-social behaviour, inadequate provision of services. Perhaps the problems it faces, as in other towns, are too big for the local politicians to handle, too demanding of an old style of local nepotistic politics to solve. The issue for those who may or may not protesteth too much is what they would do that would be any better. Faced with certain realities, it might seem a whole lot less straightforward. Pity Pollensa.


QUIZ -
Ok, this song goes back a long way. 1961 to be precise. "Town Without Pity" by ...?

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.