Reverberations were felt across Formentera's community of sport enthusiasts. The fitness and social welfare offices of the administration urged local sport federations to sign on to a pledge to tackle domestic violence and an associated manifesto. The gathering took place on Friday at 7.00pm at the municipal sport pitch.

On hand at the event was sport secretary Jordi Vidal, who, besides voicing a renewed commitment to the cause, said “joint action is needed if we are to promote gender equality”. Tackling the scourge, he said, “is on all of us”.

Vidal turned things over to CiF social welfare councillor Vanessa Parellada, who expressed her support for the Balearic government's so-called Social Covenant against Gender Violence. The pacts adherents include the Formentera Council and sport-related clubs on the island.

The event was also attended by SD Formentera's Marcos Contreras and the national trainer of the municipal athletic club, Alba Forniet, who read opening segments of the non-violence manifesto. President Jaume Ferrer and environment councillor Daisee Aguilera also appeared at the event.

Next week the Formentera Council's Office of Infrastructure and Mobility will oversee upgrades on carrer de Sant Joan in Sant Francesc. The work, expected to last one week, will equip the local arterial with pavements to accommodate pedestrian traffic.

Crews will instal a mounted pavement on the east side of the road, which will ultimately connect avinguda Porto-salè and carrer d'Isidor Macabich. Infrastructure and mobility secretary Rafael González says the challenge is to “improve pedestrian safety on a road that currently lacks pavements”.

The new pavement means that vehicle traffic along carrer de Sant Joan, currently a two-way street, will become exclusively north to south. Motorists can access carrer Sant Joan from avinguda Vuit d'Agost; to exit it they must use carrer d'Isidor Macabich. The flow of traffic on nearby arterials will not be affected.

The upgrades followed requests from locals and a related deal struck in a plenary assembly of the Formentera Council.

As the island's hospital and local administration turn ten, the Formentera Council wishes to extend a special Christmas message to the people of the island: “There's no such thing as 'too small' when your aim is true,” along with the celebratory exclamation common to islanders, Molts anys i bons!

In 2017 Formentera became the site of extra special ten-year anniversary celebrations, both for the island's hospital and the Council. The Hospital de Formentera celebrated its first decade in February with an array of fun activities.

Ten years of the Formentera Council
Meanwhile, the Council has seen to its own celebrations. Since March 1 the administration's logo, which adorns official stationary and Formentera Council websites, has included the appendage “10 years” and special programming has marked the most standout moments since the Council's creation.

On March 1, a date known locally as the Day of the Balearics, the administration heralded ten years since the Balearic Islands' Autonomy Statute appeared in the Official Gazette of Spain. The freshly inked document established that the island council which had hitherto governed Formentera and Eivissa would be split into two separate entities. The previous arrangement was underpinned by the 1983 version of the same regional statute.

Another milestone occurred on July 10, 2007, forty-five days after voters took to the polls May 27 to vote for the creation of the Formentera Council. One decade later to the day, the Formentera Council commemorated the event in the conference hall of the Formentera Day Centre with some of the main players involved in the change, including former mayor Isidor Torres, former deputy Pep Mayans and current Council president Jaume Ferrer. Also on hand were some of the leading figures behind the legal operations, like the pre-2007 administration's secretary, Marta Enciso, and her current counterpart Ángel Navarro.

Though the creation of Formentera's own hospital and council was a prospect impossible for some to imagine, time was on our side. Join us in celebrating this day, a landmark in terms of services and self-determination for all of Formentera. Molts anys i bons and happy holidays!

Council members gathered today for the administration's November plenary assembly, a session whose highlights included approval for the island's 2018 general budget. Vice-president and tax office secretary Bartomeu Escandell reported that a projected 12.78% spending increase would bring the total budget for the coming year to €26.9 million.

Escandell cited a more robust endowment from the region, including funding from sources like the so-called “Sustainable Tourism Tax” and the central government in Madrid. The secretary held up the administration's current zero debt load as a sign of its economic sure-footedness and proof “the Council doesn't need external funding”. “Yes” votes were cast by senior councillors and PSOE officials. Members of Compromís abstained and Popular Party officials voted “no”.

Core spending
The Formentera Council will make €4.5 million in direct investments on the island. One priority project to administer and create protections for local lake Estany des Peix will receive €400,000. Environmental safeguards aside, the budget is noteworthy for its focus on heritage site restoration. Escandell held up plans to commit €500,000 for the transformation of la Mola's lighthouse into a cultural gathering point. Money will also be set aside to get work started at Can Ramon, restore Sa Senieta and purchase heritage sites like Es Campament. Escandell pointed out that €1.1 million has been earmarked to build a nautical sports centre, “another of our administration's top priorities next year,” he said.

La Mola lighthouse
With “yes” votes from the cabinet secretaries and PSOE officials and the abstention of Compromís and PP, the assembly passed a measure to task Tragsa with the project's €765,550 execution. Crews will start in December and have nine months to complete the project, which involves rebuilding the lighthouse's ground floor and outer façade. Labrador said the changes would “rebrand the lighthouse as a cultural hub,” and promised “continued measures to protect this invaluable heritage site”.

In addition to an interpretative centre for la Mola's and other lighthouses on Formentera, the revamped ground floor will house a museographic collection on the local maritime patrimony and a multipurpose space for cultural events like exhibitions, concerts, conferences, recitals and stage productions. Besides a welcome area, toilets and storage spaces, the lighthouse will feature, at its entrance, a patio for open-air events both cultural and educational in nature. The remodel is possible thanks to an easement agreement between the administration and the Balearic port authority.

Unanimity
The session brought unanimous support for a measure urging regional heads of the Guardia Civil as well as the law enforcement agency's Govern delegates for Eivissa and Formentera and the Balearic department of public administration to reclassify Formentera's Guardia Civil station as “principal”.

Unqualified support was also given to a Compromís proposition to equip toilets in Council buildings with baby changing stations and put the important change at the centre of an outreach campaign directed at the private sector. The measure also urges the adoption of a similar overhaul across the Balearic government's offices on the island.

Plenary attendees were also united in approving another Compromís motion, this time to allow paperwork and formalities normally carried out in person at the Eivissa harbour master's office to be completed directly at the agency's Formentera branch. The Council, it was agreed, will urge the harbour master to dispatch an office representative to Formentera several days each month to tend to the requests of residents.

Full approval came for another Compromís measure, this one brokered by Gent per Formentera, to urge the Govern balear to equip their associated buildings with defribillators and require their presence in public places. The measure aims to assure such devices are in working order and that staff are trained in their operation. The Council will study adopting similar changes as well.