The Departmental Chamber of the Book of Santa Cruz breathes easy after yesterday Mayor Jhonny Fernández promised to enforce financial aid for the XXIII Santa Cruz International Book Fair, which starts tomorrow. With this, the fair ensures the Bs 250,000 that the municipality gives each year. That amount, initially, was being denied by the municipal legislature, whose members, for the most part, spoke out against it last week.
One of them was Maykol Negrete, councilor of UCS, who on Friday assured that those Bs 250,000 are poorly invested. For the ucesista, the organization “must not centralize the activities” in reference to the Fexpocruz venue where the event takes place. Negrete’s rejection of financial aid also indicated that the event must be self-sustaining.
Councilman Juan Carlos Medrano also objected, indicating that the amount requested “is excessive.” He added that he does not know how the income generated by the Book Fair is handled.
This Monday, after the mayor ratified that the amount and the contribution allocated to the FIL remain unchanged, Negrete backtracked on his statements and He said that he agreed with the delivery of this money for the organization of the fair.
“We are here to support any cultural initiative. What does have to be analyzed in detail is how each one of the population’s cents is invested, because we are nothing more than administrators of the resources of Santa Cruz,” explained Negrete, who stated that what they asked for was a technical and financial report on how FIL had fared last year.
“What interests us is that this fair reaches other districts, that it reaches all the Santa Cruz districts, which are 14,” said the councilman.
Procedures
The Secretary of Culture of the Mayor’s Office, Sara Mansilla, recalled that the Bs 250,000 have been included in the municipal POA for several years. “It is something that the council reviews, because it is due procedure for them to be aware of all this,” said Mansilla, who added that the request for this budget was sent to the council in advance, and last week it ran into the paralysis of the agreement on the part of some councillors, both pro-government and opposition members.
“The mayor said that the Bs 250,000 will help economic reactivation, because with the fair there is movement in the city, in the hotels, in the air and bus tickets, in the sale of books as well,” said Mansilla, who acknowledges that, given the lack of bookstores in Santa Cruz, people wait for the Fair every year. from the book.
For your part Ruth Hohenstein, president of the Santa Cruz Book Chamber, mentioned that there was a confusion in the people of the Municipal Council. “That amount they give us is part of what we need to carry out this event,” said Hohenstein, who also owns the Hopscotch bookstore. “The Book Fair is an expensive event and requires much more than the money of the municipality to make it concrete”, explained the president of this institution.
The FIL is scheduled to open this Wednesday, June 1 and will run until June 10. Admission for adults will be Bs 25 (an increase of Bs 5 compared to the previous edition) and children under 11 will enter free, as well as school delegations.
