At a press conference held on Thursday morning, Patricia Menárguez, Councillor for the Environment, Sports and Equality, has announced her resignation as a councillor for personal reasons. She was accompanied by the mayoress Carolina Gracia and her PSOE colleagues. Mari Carmen Moreno will assume her responsibilities as a councillor.
Menárguez, who was clearly upset, said that she had thought long and hard about the matter but that the decision was purely personal.
She said that politics requires “exclusive availability and that personal situations are changing. I am leaving with the satisfaction of having promoted many things such as the first day of the LGBTBI pride in Orihuela, the Spanish Beach Handball Championship, bringing Orihuela closer to the districts, and the second plan for Equality and bike lanes”. “In just a few months, many issues that had seen no movement were brought forward, something that must be valued.”
“It has been an immense honour”, to be a councillor for the Orihuela City Council, she indicated. She has said goodbye, very emotionally, with a “See you in Orihuela”.
Mayor Carolina Gracia said “it is a moment full of emotion for the PSOE. Patri is a very good colleague, a hard worker and a woman always committed to Orihuela, both in opposition and in government. Circumstances change at a level personal and difficult decisions have to be made to respond to personal needs as well as those of the government team. It is an honest and courageous decision and one that we respect.”
Menárguez’s powers are assumed by Mª Carmen Moreno Gómez, who retired from a position at the Vega Baja de Orihuela Hospital, mainly in the area of outpatient consultations, in 2022.
