However there have been two incidents in the last 2 weeks that indicate to me that the non-political stance might not be a reality.
The first happened on the 11th March as a result of a post I put on my Facebook page which linked to the article on my weblog 'CLR party accuses Orihuela Costa Town Hall press officer of Misuse of Public Administration and Trust' on the 10th March. The following comment was added to the post by the Orihuela Costa Vc: http://www.theleader.info/article/27651/spain/costa-blanca/orihuela-costa-town-hall-focus-groups-correction/ . I replied to the comment: 'Graham, I thought Vecinos Colaborando maintains it is a non-political organisation. Your posting above could be considered as deviating from that position!'. The response from the Orihuela Costa Vc was: 'Point taken but I thought that it would be best to let people have the correction'.
The second incident happened on Saturday 19th March. On that day a posting entitled 'Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony' (a link cannot be put in because the item has been deleted) appeared on the Orihuela Costa Vc Facebook page. It was a link to an item that contained nothing more than a collection of 33 photographs, taken at the inauguration of the building of a new shopping centre in Orihuela Costa, of which 24 included Monica Lorente the Partido Popular Mayor of Orihuela Municipality.
On seeing this I posted the following comments to the item as did one other person 'Gill Reynolds.
Elliot Sampford: Your fascination in photographs of Monica Lorente, our PP Mayor, is not surprising, given your support for the PP and your comment on their Populares Orihuela Costa (English) Facebook page. I believe both that and the Orihuela Costa Prensa Facebook page are managed by the same person. I have to wonder why the Orihuela Costa VC facebook page only seems to give information about PP originated events! Where is the information about events initiated by any of the Opposition parties?
Elliot Sampford: To clarify to other readers my comment above is addressed to Graham as coordinator and manager of this page.
Elliot Sampford: To Gill Reynolds: I have received emails from Facebook to say that you have replied to my comments but cannot see them on either my home page or the Orihuela Costa VC page.
Elliot Sampford: Gill R. In reply to your first comment: "Elliot anyone can post, the reason why there have been a lot of photos recently is because we have attended a lot of events, not all the photos are put on by John but as Mayor he should let people know what he is doing to promote Entre Naranjos. can't be held responsible for what other people put on including the Neighbourhood watch."
I'm not sure that the Orihuela Costa VC page should be used to promote the work of an unelected but PP appointed Mayor!
In reply to your second comment: "my understanding is that Orihuela Prensa is run by Louise and this site by the Neighbourhood Watch, the other facebook sites are by Stefan (German) and John and Louise (English)"
I was aware of Louise Clarke's, Monica Lorente's press officer, involvement in the two pages I mentioned but not of John R. thanks for the information.
Gill Reynolds: Elliot as you say your comments were aimed at Graham and not us then I retracted my statements as I do not wish to get in to any arguments, you have made your point
Gill Reynolds: and you have added your own comments to my post to make it look as though I have said it
Elliot Sampford: Gill: I have not made any attempt to suggest my own comments were from you. Your comments are closed by "speech marks" and my comments start on a new line. I don't think there can be any confusion as to who said what!
Unfortunately I cannot give a link to the posting on the Orihuela Costa Vc page to verify the above as the post in entirety, comments and all, was deleted from Facebook shortly after I made the comments. One can only guess at the reason. It is good that I had the foresight to copy the above comments before extermination.
I have of course since then posted a comment on another article (Orihuela Costa Vc http://goo.gl/PYaBU ), the first posting I have seen that mentions something relating to a party other than the PP and only after my first comment above ("I have to wonder why the Orihuela Costa VC facebook page only seems to give information about PP originated events! Where is the information about events initiated by any of the Opposition parties?"), on their page asking for clarification for the reason for the deletion:
Elliot Sampford:“To the Coordinator/Editor:......where has yesterday's (Sat 19th) posting entitled 'Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony', including mine and Gill Reynolds' comments gone?
Has it been deleted because I was suggesting that the VC page was being used to promote Monica Lorente, PP Mayor of Orihuela?
Has it been deleted because my comments were considered too political when I said “I'm not sure that the Orihuela Costa VC page should be used to promote the work of an unelected but PP appointed Mayor!” when Gill Reynolds referred to the work of her husband as the PP Mayor of Entre Naranjos?
Has it been deleted because I said “Your fascination in photographs of Monica Lorente, our PP Mayor, is not surprising, given your support for the PP and your comment on their Orihuela Costa English Facebook page”?
Has it been deleted because Monica Lorente and her two paid assessors in the Orihuela Costa Ayuntamiento, Louise Clarke and Stefan Pokroppa, and her personally appointed Entre Naranjas Mayor, John Reynolds, are all registered as friends (Hi all) of this Facebook page and might be offended by any of my comments?”
The reply comment was:
Orihuela Costa Vc: criticism accepted but offensive remarks need to be removed, nothing political from me just good news of things happening in our area. The more friends the better from all alks of life , nice to see many Spanish, Norwegian and Germany friends.
Unable to make a comment reply because the facility had been stopped I sent a direct message to the Editor.
"I cannot post this on the article concerned as the comments section seems to have been closed. You posted the following in your reply to my questions about the deleted posting "criticism accepted but offensive remarks need to be removed" implying that the offensive remarks were made by me. I have checked my copy of my remarks and can see nothing that can be construed as offensive, so would you please enlighten me as what remarks you consider offensive. As Editor you have the right to delete items from OC Vc page for valid reasons!
I received the reply: "Not by you.. the offensive comment from someone else was immediately deleted and as a result the person who had just joined removed from the site. I therefore decided for time being to remove ability to comment as its impossible to police all the while. The community site is no problem though as others cannot post their own personal views". That's fine because the reply was also posted on the OC Vc page.
However the alleged offensive comment was not on the 'Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony' article, that was deleted, but on the article I posted my questions onto. I know because I saw it ("the offensive comment") when it was posted, before it was deleted. It was by a well known supporter of the PSOE party, the major opposition party to the governing Partido Popular party in the Orihuela Town Council. In my opinion it did not contain any language that I consider offensive but what it did do was to comment adversely about the PP. Was that what made it an offensive comment?
So my comments were not offensive. But still my questions as to why the 'Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony' posting was deleted after comments were added to it remain unanswered.
Another relevant factor, which I discovered, is that it seems that on the Facebook social network the Orihuela Costa Vc only has 'friendships' or 'likes' links to pages associated with the governing Partido Popular Mayor, Monica Lorente, and her party. There does not appear to be any social networking links with any of the Opposition parties, or their spokespersons, on the Council such as the PSOE, Los Verdes and CLR, or the local active but unelected CLARO party. Is the group only interested in hearing about and telling its Facebook friends about what the PP is doing?
This leaves me wondering.
Is the Orihuela Costa Neighbourhood Watch a Non-Non-Political Group?
Is the Orihuela Costa Neighbourhood Watch being used, or acting, surreptitiously as a publicist for the Partido Popular party?
Notes:
1. For those readers interested and registered on Facebook after logging in the photographs can be seen here 'Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony' . It is on the originating source, the Facebook page of Orihuela Costa Prensa which is edited by Louise Clarke, Monica Lorente's personal press officer.
2. Graham whom I addressed my reply to is a senior co-ordinator of Orihuela Costa Neighbourhood Watch and editor of the official Facebook pages of the group. He also left a comment on the weblog article mentioned above.
3. As I understand it Gill Reynolds is the wife of John Reynolds, a supporter of the PP, who was arbitrarily appointed as Mayor of The Entre Naranjas district within the Orihuela Municipality by Mayor Monica Lorente.
