Aljezur - 'guilty' mayor gets €10 million 2014 budget

Aljezur council today announced that its budget for 2014 is just over €10 million and highlights as priorities the upgrading and modernisation its schools.

"With the contribution from central government down dramatically year on year, along with the decrease in own revenues, the Aljezur budget for 2014 will be €10,713,781," according to the council, which added that it does not proposed to do any work for which it does not have funds available so as not to jeopardise the financial stability of the municipality.

 The continuity of Aljezur council's programme to upgrade and modernise the area’s schools is a priority, as is the maintenance of all measures to support students.

As for culture and sport the municipality aims to maintain "all municipal programmes and activities" and in the area of land valuation it wants to complete the Plan Pomenor for Vale de Telha.

As for social support the council will define needs and provide support for those living in poverty.

As for developing business in the Aljezur area the council is to create a corporate incubator facility along with a new department within the council to help develop the local economy and local employment.

A further cost in 2014 will be the hosting of a biennial Nature Tourism event which aims to bring together the largest European tourism agencies with local forms to boost this sector in the Algarve and Portugal generally.

One of the project managers of this event, Pedro Ornelas who also is the president of the Vincentina association, commented "The purpose of the event is to give international visibility to a product that already exists, the natural potential of the Portuguese landscape, and put large travel agencies in contact with businesses in this sector."

Other partners helping to host and promote this event include the Associação In Loco, Associação Terras do Baixo Guadiana and the Câmara de Aljezur itself.

All fine and dandy, but serious questions exist over the continuing role of the current mayor of Aljezur José Amarelinho who has been through a protracted court process, been handed a suspended jail sentence, a fine and banned from office, but still is mayor of this wild west outpost.

Amarelinho twice has been condemned for ‘prevaricating’ over the licensing of building projects at the Vale da Telha housing area.

His predecessor, Manuel Marreiros, was done as well but both naturally said they had done nothing wrong and went to appeal after the original decision was handed down by the court in Lagos in 2012.

Their prison sentences of just over three and four years respectively were to be suspended only if they paid €5,000 each to environmental associations.

Perceptively the court also ruled that Amarelinho should not continue in his public role as mayor of Aljezur council.

The case ended up in the legal black hole of the court in Évora, which handles appeals from the Algarve region despite being in the Alentejo, which ruled this May that the cases should be heard all over again. Évora also scrapped the original Lagos judgement which enabled Amarelinho to stand as mayor again in the 2013 elections in September. He did and he won.

At the beginning of September this year the Lagos court was back in play and having re-tried the case, again found the two men guilty but ditched the condition that Amarelinho was unfit for public office which enabled him to carry on turning up for work as mayor despite the serious allegations against him having been upheld.

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