Meet The New Boss

Muro has a new mayor. You're forgiven if you are underwhelmed by the news. Bear with me. The change follows the retirement of the previous incumbent, Jaume Perelló (Unió Mallorquina - UM). His replacement comes from the Partido Popular and Convergencia Democrática Murera (CDM) which garnered the support of the UM at Muro town hall in order to vote in the new mayor. His name is Martí Fornés. I wouldn't necessarily normally bring such news to your attention, and wouldn't have had it not been for the opaqueness of the reporting of his ascendancy to the mayoral office. This opaqueness was summed up by "The Diario" which merely said that Sr. Fornés is (was) an "experienced manager" with an "important hotel chain". The hotel chain was not named, nor was it in any other report I came across. I did some research. Among other things, I found a forum in Catalan and Castellano in which someone asks "where does he work?". The question posed was a while ago, but it was in connection with the planned golf course in Muro. After nine or ten pages of googling, there was an entry for the El Mundo Eldia website from 5 March 2007. There was the answer. Sr. Fornés was the finance director of Grupotel, the chain based in Muro and with four hotels in Playa de Muro - Alcúdia Suite, Amapola, Los Principes and the five-star Parc Natural.

Why this reticence to disclose the hotel chain? It is a Muro business, a successful one, an employer of people. Let's put it down to a media determination to not publicise the company. Perhaps. Or is naming the hotel chain somehow breaking a confidence? Surely not. It's a matter of record. It's information in the public domain. The reticence only adds to a certain intrigue. And why? Go back to that forum thread about the golf course.

In "The Diario" Sr. Fornés was open about his views as to the development on the Son Bosc finca. To sum them up, he's in favour of the golf course and believes that it will create employment and will meet environmental requirements. Fair enough; everyone knows where he stands. But the hotel connection does raise some issues, such as the fact that the largest shareholder (with 43%) in Golf Playa de Muro SA, the company behind the development, is Grupotel. (22 December 2008: That's Just The Way It Is.) Not really that it is anything unusual to have a mayor from this hotel chain; its president, Miquel Ramis, is a one-time incumbent.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest that one hotel chain or another might stand to benefit from the development. Experienced businesspeople are probably just what a place like Muro needs. Otherwise you might end up with some old farmer whose idea of a tourist attraction is to boil a goat and hand out lumps of bread to scoop up the broth. And if they are experienced businesspeople from within the community who have played a role in generating wealth for the town, then I see no problem, especially those with a tourism background. It may sound inappropriate as one has to assume at least some vested interest, but is it really?

I am not opposed to the golf development, certainly not on environmental grounds. What I have yet to be convinced as to is the business case for the development. Presumably one exists, and Sr. Fornés says that it will create more employment. But it would be nice to have it spelt out. Sr. Fornés was a finance director. Maybe he's the person who can do just that, always bearing in mind that 43% of any business case is Grupotel's.


In case you were wondering ... Mayors are actually selected by councillors, which is how Sr. Fornés comes to now be mayor.


And still down Muro way, a curious thing in "The Bulletin". It had its "beach of the day" yesterday. Platja de Muro (platja being the Catalan for playa). One could sense that something was not quite right about this, apart from calling it Platja as opposed to Playa as one might expect or the fact that the beach length was stated as being 430 metres; a zero seemed to have been missed. But it read a little oddly, for instance describing Can Picafort (in the directions to the beach) as a "village". No native speaker would call it that. It's not so difficult to find the answer - much of this came from the illesbalears site.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Laura Veirs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcIz2iZXJFs. Today's title - had this before.

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