By The Star Staff
Former Tourism Company director Terestella González Denton has filed her candidacy for mayor of San Juan under the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and says she will develop a government plan that will focus on addressing poverty.
González Denton said Sunday that her desire to return to public service and her love for the capital city moved her to file her candidacy for San Juan mayor.
“I call it [the Government plan] a living platform because I want to tie it to organizations that are currently making a change in the capital city and doing social and economic work,” she said as quoted in a radio interview.
Among some of the problems that González Denton said she would address, she pointed to clean and illuminated roads as an everyday responsibility, as is the issue of poverty surrounding the capital and its close proximity to tourism zones.
“We see places that, really, are almost marginalized, and they do not have any interconnection with the city,” she said. “And that’s the same thing; they are marginalized spaces, and there is great poverty, so we have to work on that vision of the city.”
The former top tourism official stressed meanwhile that she would amend the Public Order Code so that, instead of being a harassment measure for merchants, it focuses on improving the security services of the municipal police.
“We are going to look at this code so that it is a fair code and it is a code that applies to areas where there is a greater flow of visitors and see that harmony between what is the life of the resident and commerce,” she said.
The candidate also welcomed the leap that the mayors of Villalba and Comerío, Luis Javier Ortiz Hernández and Josian Santiago Rivera, respectively, intend to take to the Senate.
PDP Rep. Héctor Ferrer Santiago, whose work was noted by the San Juan mayoral candidate, said González Denton has impeccable experience.
“We have a capital city that does not compete with other cities in Latin America because, unfortunately, the outgoing mayor has dedicated himself to throwing tar and establishing a Public Order Code due to the inability to control crime,” Ferrer Santiago said.
The freshman lawmaker, who will run for reelection, also criticized Elmer Román, a candidate for resident commissioner in the New Progressive Party primaries, who he said would have no way out against the PDP’s candidate for the post, Pablo José Hernández Rivera.
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