Getting down to business

IT looks like the new set of Dagupan’s servant leaders are dead-serious about not wasting any time to get the city’s affairs in order.

They are not giving much space for some honeymoon period with the city hall employees. They’re arriving, sitting down, meeting up, and walking about to sort what needs to be addressed. And that’s a good thing. A very good thing.

Mayor Alipio Fernandez is no stranger to the job having once held the same position. Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez was at one time a councilor herself. Most of their councilors – 11 of whom out of the 12 are their teammates in the election – are re-electionists or former public servants in other government sectors. There really is no need for some sweet getting-to-know-you stage. The concerns of the city definitely deserve immediate attention.

And starting right across and at the back of the city hall are good places as any to begin the repairs.

The highly irregular commercial-tourism project at the former Magsaysay Park fronting the city hall will be a major test on the political and administrative will of the Fernandez-Fernandez leadership. This venture by the new MetroState Realty Development Corporation, whose owners are insolent in their continued silence have been defiant of legal and proper proceedings from the bidding to the start of the construction just before the election ban on government projects took effect. Their contract, evidently railroaded and signed in the shadows, remains one of the city’s biggest yet tainted and scandalous projects.

Meanwhile, the Malimgas Market, a pet project of former Mayor Benjamin Lim, was constructed with the best business intentions for the city and its entrepreneurs but, unfortunately, has proven to be more of a burden for the city’s coffers. Built on a P300-million loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines, it has not only remained largely useless for majority of the city’s vendors, traders and consumers, it has also been a major drain on the city’s finances with the failure to earn enough in stall rentals to at least pay for the debt amortization.

Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, a very successful entrepreneur in the retail sector with a chain of successful shopping malls not just in Pangasinan but in many parts of northern Luzon, could reap from her deep personal experience to find a solution before Malimgas fully becomes  white elephant in the city.

From this first week’s indications, the new leadership in Dagupan seems to be off to an excellent start. Let’s hope the momentum gets going and going.

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