In Aranjuez they have been waiting for the Police station for ten years

The police station in charge of the security and coexistence of 170,000 inhabitants of commune 4 (Aranjuez) is, strangely, in another commune, on 3 (Manrique).

Seeking to correct this fact that, according to the community, has historically hindered the security strategy, in 2010 the management began to build a Police station with a more suitable structure and location to serve one of the three communes with the most inhabitants of the city.

In 2011, under the administration of Aníbal Gaviria, about $ 10 billion was approved for the work as part of the agreements of the Life and Equity Days and the assignment of the lot was managed a few steps from Tricentenario station in the Palermo neighborhood. But in the rest of his tenure, not a single brick was laid. Then Federico Gutiérrez promised in the campaign to carry out the work and did not comply.

Finally, on August 20, the contract was signed, after public bidding, by the Consorcio Comando Aranjuez, made up of Lopeca SA, a company based in Montería, and the firm Ingap SAS with a general budget of more than $ 11,700 million. But far from breathing easy, the doubts of the community increased.

For this reason, the Local Administrative Board –JAL– summoned the Secretary of Security, José Gerardo Acevedo Ossa, together with the contractor and Personería, to ask the owner of the office for explanations, as the cost organizer. But since the official raised a medical excuse and did not send a formal delegate, Jhon Jairo Morales, mayor summoning the hearing, lifted it and requested the secretary again on October 21, as well as the Comptroller’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.

Morales says that it is inadmissible that at this point the community and the JAL, with the authority to exercise political control and surveillance, are not certain about elementary aspects, such as, for example, if the designs of the work respond to current needs or used old designs from when the project was raised 10 years ago.

Acevedo Ossa sent a form with responses to various requirements that had to be expanded upon at the hearing. It says, for example, that the station will have 5 cells for vehicles and 28 for motorcycles, all for the exclusive use of the Police. Mayor Morales asks who was the curator who approved a work for a public building without parking for citizens.

In addition, the Police in the commune have about 8 vans and 60 motorcycles, so Morales questions how a design could be contemplated that, from the outset, is deficient to house current police logistics.

For the rest, in the answers to the questionnaire known by this means, the secretary does not throw clarity on the capacity of cells; whether or not there is a plan to mitigate damages and changes in mobility during and after the work; if it includes a citizen service office; if there will be damages or changes in the aqueduct networks in the area.

Another concern revolves around whether or not there is a neighborhood act, which contemplates the inventory of possible effects on neighboring homes, and the measures to mitigate and compensate for them, since several neighbors already warn of damage to the structures of their houses.

To clear up these and other questions, the JAL asked the secretary to deliver a copy of the station designs, but Acevedo Ossa responded that according to Law 1755 of 2015, “the information and documents related to defense and national security have the character reserve ”and that since the station is destined for defense and national security“ it is not appropriate to access this request ”.

However, in dialogue with EL COLOMBIANO, the Secretary of Security delivered a different answer and guaranteed that on October 21 he will attend the summons and that the community will be able to know almost all the details of the station that day (except, for example , location of the weapons and some other technical security details) and that for this that day he will go with plans and designs.

Acevedo Ossa also ensures that there are soil studies and other technical analyzes that guarantee that the work will not affect homes in the area.

The secretary emphasizes that the work will pay off the debt that exists with commune 4, which, he says, has seen a slight increase in homicide and also an increase in house robberies, a situation that did not occur before and that responds, he points out, to a city problem as a result of the pandemic.

The community hopes that these temporary problems and, in general, coexistence will definitely improve with the presence of a police station that, as it should always have been, remains in its own territory and not in the neighboring commune. But that, in addition, it is well done