Public greed, public corruption and the crisis--part 1

This will be a blog post about the public kind of greed, which leads to public corruption and is one of the major elements that led to the current economic crisis and helped inspire me to make "Domino:  caught in the economic crisis."  Other than providing some of the inspiration,  what, you may ask, does public greed have to do with "Domino?"  I´ll answer THAT question in the NEXT blog.

Since I´m in Jerez de la Frontera, I´ll focus on public greed right here at my doorstep, but in the back of my mind is the public greed I saw growing up in New Orleans;  the public greed in places like Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. that used to make national headlines;  and in India, Mexico, Egypt, Japan....

In Jerez, I can see something out of my front window that is called the "Ciudad de Flamenco," or "City of Flamenco."  It is a construction project which is supposed to result in a major facility including theater, space for classes, etc.--a BIG theater, etc.  It has been in the works for years.

The Ciudad de Flamenco--the contractors recently left the site.

The city, the Spanish national government, and I believe even the European Union have contributed funds.  But a recent newspaper article revealed that of the 3 million Euros the city had for the project, 2.7 million Euros had disappeared before construction began.  Now, it didn't simply walk away.  It has to be in someone's pocket.

In the meantime, after four years of "being under construction,"  what we have is a massive concrete base covered by a fair amount of dirt.  And that's it.  So far.  (Since the building design is one I find to be extremely ugly and I think the entire project is ill-conceived, this may not be a totally bad thing, but WHERE are those millions?)

Local newspapers also reported, last year, that the salary for the mayor here (at least up until the last election) as well as for a large number of city department heads is greater than the salary for the director of the entire geographic region (Andalucia).  The region consists of many, many cities plus agricultural regions in between--surely more work.

Jerez' city hall

And many city departments are headed by people who have no background--and often no interest--in the work of the department they direct.  Excuse me, but this is also a form of greed...to be willing to be paid large sums of money to do something for which you are not qualified and in which you may also have absolutely no interest.

NEXT POST:  Public greed and...the Teatro Villamarta, the city's bills, even palm trees.  (Palm trees?  Sure.  Palm trees.)

P.S.  Check out the photos at the bottom of this post!