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Penonomé has high expectations for next mayor

Edilsa González/la prensa

community vision: Residents of the Coclé province’s largest urban center will be choosing their next mayor with vast changes in mind for their city.1107787

Voters in Penonomé, the largest city in the Coclé province, may have only recently nominated mayoral candidates for the coming elections, which hail from the major parties such as the Partido Panameñista, the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) and the Vanguardia Moral de la Patria, but the community has already defined a laundry list of tasks for their future mayor to take on, preferably within his or her first 100 days in office.

From resolving the city’s legendary trash problems to constructing an updated bus terminal and modernizing the sewage system and creating public spaces, Penonomé residents seem to have developed a common vision of how their growing city should be, and their vision is ambitious.

For Professor Heraclio Quiros, the town’s next mayor should make issues relating to education and culture a major priority.

Additionally, the teacher emphasized that whichever party’s candidate wins the district, that leader must understand that politics ends after the election, and decide to concentrate on solving the urgent needs within the community.

According to Urbano Rodríguez, a farmer from the community of Chiguirí Abajo, the next mayor needs to ensure that economic growth is experienced by people in the district’s more remote and less accessible areas, where poverty and deficits of opportunity intertwine in a way that stifles economic development.

Fortunately for the future mayor, municipal revenues for Penonomé have increased by about 35 percent over the last six years, according to figures from treasurer Manuel Pardo. This year, the city’s income is expected to exceed $913,000.

Nora Graell, first time mayoral candidate with the Partido Panameño, commented that Penonomé would benefit from a change of party after 10 years of being in the hands of the PRD.

High on Graell’s list of priorities is a plan to continue working to decentralize the municipal government and boost educational subsidies, equipping schools with virtual libraries and promote the development of a high school specializing in tourism and hospitality.