The Association of Retired and Pensioners Virgen de la Peña held its annual assembly on Friday 24th at the Cortijo Don Elías in Las Lagunas. At the meeting, the association presented its new board of directors, now chaired by Pepi Márquez, taking over from Juan Cruz, who has been at the head of the association for the last five years. "I think I've got myself into a mess, but I hope it will be a nice mess", confessed Márquez, assuring that “I hope to do a fairly good job with my colleagues, who are all very nice".

The new president will be joined on the board by Juan Cruz, as vice-president and treasurer, and José Carlos Parra as secretary, while the members of the association will be Antonio Francisco Cortés, José Espinosa, Isabel Pérez, María Dolores Ortega and José Manuel España. In this new venture, the association is committed to continue fighting for the long awaited and necessary retirement home for the elderly. "Hopefully the Mijas Town Hall will make more progress during this term of office, because so far nothing has been done", said vice-president Juan Cruz. 

In response, the councillor for Senior Citizens, Silvia Marín (PP), present at this meeting, recalled that the project of the retirement home of the previous government team was stopped last year by the Junta de Andalucía "because the Mijas Town Hall did not comply with its average period of payment to suppliers". In this regard, the councillor explained that "we are now with all the projects and designs on the residence and the mayoress of Mijas, Ana Mata, has already told this association that the the option of changing the location of this infrastructure, and move it from Las Lagunas to La Cala, to make construction easier is being studied".

 

The first deputy mayor of Mijas, Juan Carlos Cuevas (Vox), also spoke on this issue: "It is true that the issue of the retirement home is the responsibility of the Junta de Andalucía but so was the hospital in Estepona and yet the mayor of this municipality built it, investing 15 million and it is already functioning", he said, adding that "we, in Mijas, have 120 million in surplus... what are we going to use it for? 

For his part, the spokesman and councillor for the PSOE in Mijas Town Hall, Josele González, pointed out that "the time will come to assess the possible change of location of the plot, but now from the PSOE we hope that the new board of directors will continue to fight to get this retirement home, for which they have been fighting since 2006". 

 

Other matters on the agenda

The Association of Retired and Pensioners Virgen de la Peña also reported during this meeting on the budget of this group as well as upcoming activities, "will continue organising trips, snacks and other things, because it is true that we are elderly but we do not want to be at home all day", summarised Márquez, who also took advantage of the presence of members of the government team to request improvements in the senior centres of the three areas of the municipality.

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