TWO councils have gone into battle over road signs in a territorial dispute which saw one mayor get out a paint pot and brush to personally remove some directions from a Rafal road.
The row between Rafal and Orihuela concerns road markings put down by Orihuela council on Calle Infanta Elena Infanta, which Rafal´s PSOE mayor Manuel Pineda took great pleasure in “blacking out”.
Orihuela claim that the border with the Rafal municipality actually goes down the middle of the road, and that they were entitled to lay down the warning signage, which Rafal initially removed.
Orihuela workers then replaced them and surrounded them with blue plastic bollards, which Rafal mayor Pineda pushed aside, having summonsed the local media to witness his actions, which were also witnessed by no fewer than eight Orihuela local police officers, some of whom stood right next to him
Pineda accused his Orihuela counterpart, the Partido Popular´s Emilio Bascuñana of a “full force territorial invasion”, whilst in turn Bascuñana called the actions of the Rafal mayor an “act of vandalism and bravado”, adding that he was “unworthy of representing the people”.
