Secretary of the departmental mayor Gabriel Gabbiani (PC). Just days after having advocated for the maintenance of the Don Bosco College (San Juan Bosco Industrial School) for the community of Juan Lacaze, the departmental mayor Gabriel Gabbiani (P. Colorado – Citizens) promoted in the Ordinary Session on November 23 of the Departmental Board of Colonia a meeting between the competent authorities for the enhancement of Club CYSSA, in the same town, which was unanimously approved.
Gabbiani recalled that the current headquarters was built “in 1946 by Don Miguel Campomar with the original idea of concentrating the social and sports activities of the 2,500 workers of the Campomar y Soulas SA textile company, but rapidly expanding its access to the rest of the inhabitants of Juan Lacaze”, and that it is an “emblematic building between the social and sports headquarters of the department”.
“After the definitive closure of the textile company on March 1, 1993, without the company being able to comply with the obligations of the labor contracts of its workers, thus becoming its creditors, CYSSA was included (despite the doubts of who was the true legal owner, which even determined several judicial hearings) in the liquidation package of Campomar and Soulas SA”, continued the mayor.
In this situation, “in response to the requests of the community and the local government, the National Sports Secretariat (SND) acquired the property at a public auction in August 2016. It was a coordinated action with the Departmental Government. The amount of the transaction amounted to $6,000,000, with a contribution from the SND of $2,820,000. The rest, $3:180,000, was an intangible contribution from the Municipality of Colonia (IDC) which, with the approval of this Departmental Board, canceled the debt for Real Estate Contribution of the building, a tax from which in theory it should have been exonerated, but regarding which the different Directive Commissions had omitted to carry out the corresponding procedures that must be carried out annually”, he continued.
“The truth is that the SND made the decision to contribute this money considering the need to maintain a space used by the community for sports, social, and cultural uses and to preserve it from eventual purchasers who understood that these purposes should not be taken into account in the future of these facilities”, he continued.
“At the beginning of 2017 – continued Gabbiani – a Tripartite Commission was set up with the participation of the SND, the IDC and the Municipality, which had to maintain a dialogue with the Club’s Board of Directors to formulate and implement an institutional project aimed at the development of culture, sports and associative life with an impact on the Laca population. Then the SND hired the Polos Consulting firm, specialized in Sports Development, to carry out a study with an Executive Project for the transformation of CYSSA to propose a new organizational design and management model. In turn, Polos subcontracted the consultancy AIC Economía y Finanzas, and the architect Carlos Pascual, an expert in heritage buildings and their restructuring, with proven experience in reforming the Teatro de Verano in Montevideo, the new Agricultural Market (MAM) and the Teatro Solís, among others”, he continued.
“This team started working at the beginning of 2019 trying to identify through interviews the strengths and weaknesses of CYSSA. Pascual gave the Consultant a first report on the state of the building. It was expected that before 2019 the studies would be completed and they would be presented publicly to find out what was proposed for the “new” CYSSA. But nothing has been officially known to date, ”said the mayor of Ciudadanos.
It is imperative to come to the rescue
“Currently the club is on loan to the current Board of Directors, and fortunately it concentrates social activities (dances, parties, ceremonies), cultural (meetings, workshops, public hearings, etc.), it is used by students from public schools and UTU , as well as the rest of the population of Laca and other cities in the department, and maintains a permanent sports activity (gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, judo, taekwondo, boxing, skateboarding, table tennis, archery, etc.), for male members. and women, and at different ages,” he said.
“The building was declared a monument in 2010 by the National Historical and Cultural Heritage Commission. It is a structure with 4 levels. They include a basement (with a gym; changing rooms, showers and male and female toilets; two bowling alleys; utility room and storage), a ground floor (with an entrance hall; main gym; office; restaurant; meeting room and canteen); a mezzanine (with social space; administration offices; rooms used to accommodate athletes from other locations and countries; and trophy cabinets); and a closed terrace (for various artistic, cultural, sports and social activities)”, Gabbiani said. But, he warned, “it has been declining by leaps and bounds and needs an immediate restoration project and maintenance work, before the situation worsens.”
In this way, “we want to expose before this Departmental Board the situation of this emblematic and paradigmatic sports, cultural and social building, and advocate that a meeting be coordinated between the SDN, the National Directorate of Architecture of the MTOP, the Ministry of Tourism, the Commission of the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation, the IDC, representatives of this Departmental Board and the Municipal Council of Juan Lacaze in order to organize a meeting to coordinate actions in order to outline an action program for the enhancement of the property”; proposed Gabbiani, whose proposal was unanimously approved.
