The budgets approved by Pollensa councillors for 2013 do not, after all, include a payment to the architect Rafael Moneo for work he did in submitting the proposal for the now abandoned auditorium project in Pollensa. There has been considerable doubt raised as to whether the town hall actually initiated the auditorium project and so whether it owes Moneo anything. Mayor Cifre had been saying that the town hall was obliged to pay up, but a new report into the matter has been commissioned in order to establish whether there is such an obligation.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Showing posts with label Auditorium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Auditorium. Show all posts
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Thursday, December 27, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Payment to Pollensa auditorium architect queried
The architect for the aborted project to construct the auditorium in Pollensa, Rafael Moneo, is to receive a payment of 150,000 euros, the amount having been included in the town hall's budget for 2013. The Alternativa and opposition parties are querying this payment and indeed any commitment that the town hall has to make it, pointing to what the previous mayor, Joan Cerdà, said regarding the town hall not having a debt to Moneo because the town hall hadn't actually ordered the auditorium project.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa auditorium money is wanted back
When the decision was taken some months ago to not go ahead with the construction of the auditorium in Pollensa, it was hoped that the town hall would get back money it had invested in the project (getting on for 700,000 euros) from the regional government. To date, the money has not been forthcoming, and the PSM in Pollensa is insisting that it should be and should come from the regional government's budget.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Sanity In Pollensa: The auditorium
Finally, some sanity prevails at Pollensa town hall. The previous madness had not been claimed by myself alone; far from it. The Alternativa per Pollença party has been one that has made constant reference to the lunacy. At least now it cannot be said that the lunatics have taken over the auditorium.
Several years down the line - the project has been on the drawing-board for eight years - Pollensa town hall has decided to withdraw from an agreement with the regional government for the building of an auditorium in the town. By doing so, it hopes to recover funds from the government to the tune of just over 200,000 euros a year that it has not been receiving since 2007. The reason why it has not been getting these funds is that they were waived in return for 4.5 million euros from the department of the presidency to go towards the auditorium's building.
Whether the town hall will get its money back, we will have to wait and see. As the government hasn't got any money and has, in any event, been playing hardball with the divvying up of cash through the so-called co-operation fund, Pollensa may have to wait. At least, or so one presumes, it will receive the money over the next five years of what was meant to have been a ten-year period.
Apart from the loss of annual funding, the madness of the auditorium project has been evident in different ways. Firstly, why was it ever deemed necessary at all? Its necessity lay with the vanity of a town hall that wanted a me-too auditorium because other towns (e.g. Alcúdia) have one and with the grandiose schemes for public works dreamt up under the regional presidency of Jaume Matas.
Secondly, where was the control of the project? It was not officially put out to tender. Its design and budget (ten million euros in total) were those of one architect.
Thirdly, of this budget, why was the tourism ministry involved? It was due to have contributed five million euros to its building, a contribution that was withdrawn a few days before the regional elections in May by the ministry of the former administration. But what did the auditorium have to do with tourism? In Alcúdia, where its auditorium has never operated at anything like capacity, the building contributes precisely nothing to tourism.
The tourism ministry was the wrong ministry, just as it has been the wrong ministry for giving out grants to events such as Pollensa's music festival (or not giving them out, as it has turned out). The music festival, like the auditorium, is something for the culture ministry; the festival's contribution to tourism is minimal.
Each ministry has its own budget, and the tourism ministry, in effect bust, had little alternative but to withdraw its funding. But it should never have been saddled with the responsibility in the first place. If you wonder how it is that the ministry can be so ineffective when it comes to tourism promotion, here is part of the reason; it has been lumbered with things that shouldn't be on its manor.
The Alternativa has been laying into the previous mayor, Joan Cerdá, for his "obsession" with the auditorium project and the current mayor, Tomeu Cifre, who, in previous administrations, did not speak out against the project. And now Pollensa will have neither an over-ambitious auditorium nor a far less ambitious multi-purpose hall, which is what the Alternativa believes the town does need.
It may well be right, but the experience of Alcúdia, with the over-budget and under-utilised fiasco that is its Can Ramis building, suggests that Pollensa might be better off forgetting about some other scheme as well.
The one saving grace of the "crisis" is that hare-brained projects, cobbled together with nary a thought as to what their use or return might be (did anyone calculate a reasoned return on the auditorium investment?), have to be put on ice or killed off. One day though, a new project for an auditorium will probably return; if it does, it still wouldn't mean it was necessary.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Several years down the line - the project has been on the drawing-board for eight years - Pollensa town hall has decided to withdraw from an agreement with the regional government for the building of an auditorium in the town. By doing so, it hopes to recover funds from the government to the tune of just over 200,000 euros a year that it has not been receiving since 2007. The reason why it has not been getting these funds is that they were waived in return for 4.5 million euros from the department of the presidency to go towards the auditorium's building.
Whether the town hall will get its money back, we will have to wait and see. As the government hasn't got any money and has, in any event, been playing hardball with the divvying up of cash through the so-called co-operation fund, Pollensa may have to wait. At least, or so one presumes, it will receive the money over the next five years of what was meant to have been a ten-year period.
Apart from the loss of annual funding, the madness of the auditorium project has been evident in different ways. Firstly, why was it ever deemed necessary at all? Its necessity lay with the vanity of a town hall that wanted a me-too auditorium because other towns (e.g. Alcúdia) have one and with the grandiose schemes for public works dreamt up under the regional presidency of Jaume Matas.
Secondly, where was the control of the project? It was not officially put out to tender. Its design and budget (ten million euros in total) were those of one architect.
Thirdly, of this budget, why was the tourism ministry involved? It was due to have contributed five million euros to its building, a contribution that was withdrawn a few days before the regional elections in May by the ministry of the former administration. But what did the auditorium have to do with tourism? In Alcúdia, where its auditorium has never operated at anything like capacity, the building contributes precisely nothing to tourism.
The tourism ministry was the wrong ministry, just as it has been the wrong ministry for giving out grants to events such as Pollensa's music festival (or not giving them out, as it has turned out). The music festival, like the auditorium, is something for the culture ministry; the festival's contribution to tourism is minimal.
Each ministry has its own budget, and the tourism ministry, in effect bust, had little alternative but to withdraw its funding. But it should never have been saddled with the responsibility in the first place. If you wonder how it is that the ministry can be so ineffective when it comes to tourism promotion, here is part of the reason; it has been lumbered with things that shouldn't be on its manor.
The Alternativa has been laying into the previous mayor, Joan Cerdá, for his "obsession" with the auditorium project and the current mayor, Tomeu Cifre, who, in previous administrations, did not speak out against the project. And now Pollensa will have neither an over-ambitious auditorium nor a far less ambitious multi-purpose hall, which is what the Alternativa believes the town does need.
It may well be right, but the experience of Alcúdia, with the over-budget and under-utilised fiasco that is its Can Ramis building, suggests that Pollensa might be better off forgetting about some other scheme as well.
The one saving grace of the "crisis" is that hare-brained projects, cobbled together with nary a thought as to what their use or return might be (did anyone calculate a reasoned return on the auditorium investment?), have to be put on ice or killed off. One day though, a new project for an auditorium will probably return; if it does, it still wouldn't mean it was necessary.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, July 25, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa's auditorium in doubt
It has been announced that ten days before the local elections the regional government tourism ministry informed Pollensa town hall that a grant of five million euros towards the cost of the long-projected auditorium was to be withdrawn, information that was not made public at the time. The new administration is now faced with having to decide whether the project should go ahead on a less grand scale, though there are doubts as to whether funds from the presidential ministry will be forthcoming either.
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