The issue will come before the Urban Planning Committee on Monday through a report prepared by the head of a municipal department. Ranera criticised the document because, she explained, it “comes four years late” and because, according to the PSOE’s calculations, roughly one month remains before the possibility of claiming the debt may become time-barred. “What we are asking is for it to be enforced or resolved, but for that money to be returned to the city,” she demanded.
The Socialist spokesperson maintains that the city council paid Tiro de Pichón for land that was later deemed to be in the public domain, and recalls that the plenary council approved an ex officio review of the case in 2022. Ranera accused the PP of now trying to avoid collecting the money, describing it as an “incapable government” characterised by “favouritism towards the usual beneficiaries”. She therefore insisted that the PSOE “will not look the other way” and said the money “will be returned, either because Natalia Chueca finally decides to do so, or because we will go to court through to the ultimate consequences”.
THE PSOE SETS MONDAY AS THE DEADLINE
Ros Cihuelo explained that Tiro de Pichón filed an appeal for reconsideration against the plenary agreement in December 2022 and requested that its enforcement be suspended. According to the Socialist councillor, 1,380 days have passed since then during which “absolutely nothing has been done” to resolve it. “We are talking about €12 million that belongs to the people of Zaragoza,” she insisted, calling for the protection of municipal assets to prevail.
Cihuelo placed particular emphasis on the report that will reach the Urban Planning Committee on Monday, arguing that it merely interprets the legal consequences of the time elapsed without any political decision having been made on the case. “Nobody in Ms Chueca’s government dares to sign, to put the political decision down in black and white,” she said. The PSOE is demanding that collection proceedings be initiated or that the appeal filed by the company be formally resolved.
SERRANO CALLS THE STATEMENTS “EASILY DISPROVABLE HOAXES”
Following these statements, Víctor Serrano, the councillor and spokesperson for the municipal government, said he was surprised that “the PSOE is spreading such easily disprovable hoaxes”. He stressed that the case to be referred from the Urban Planning Committee to the plenary council is precisely “to prevent the action to claim from Tiro de Pichon from becoming time-barred and to safeguard the interest of the city government and the city council in collecting the amounts that may ultimately result from the various judicial proceedings pending a court ruling”.
Serrano highlighted that one of the points in the municipal proposal states that “once the Tiro de Pichón Sports Society has filed contentious-administrative proceedings against the boundary demarcation decision, and once a ruling has been issued in the judicial proceedings, Zaragoza City Council will continue processing the case, initiating whatever actions are legally appropriate to claim in full the amounts improperly received by the Tiro de Pichón Sports Society”.
