VIBNews Interviews City Councillor Silvestre Senent

A light spring rain was falling over the semi-erected Fallas monuments as we waded through the gathering crows in the Town Hall Square and into the Town Hall. Waitng for us in his office decorated with paintings as showing Valencian traditions was the city Cou8ncillor responsible for economic and budgetary matters, Silvestre Senent, one of the town’s longest serving politicians and hailing from one of its most illustrious families; the Senents have given the town many illustrious sons dedicated to the rice industry and erudition.

It was from his work in a rice mill that Silvestre was able to raise his family in his home town of Massamagrell, a town in the agricultural heartland of Valencia’s Horta (market garden), and where he still has some orange groves.

In the days of Spain’s transition to democracy, he was asked by fellow parents to represent them in the Parent-Teachers’ Association, where he was elected President, and his political career had begun, almost without realising it.

By 1981 he was number one on his party’s list for the elections in Massamagrell, and then later a provincial MP for Sagunto before representing Valencia, where he has served on the Council for 30 years.

Since those early days he has seen a massive development in the city, with emblematic monuments and prestigious events, and yet secretly remains most proud of the works that are hidden and rarely praised, such as the elaborate and complex (Valencia is flat after all and water has to be made to run) sewerage and drainage system whose implementation he has overseen.

But getting back to Valencia’s most obvious attractions, we reviewed some of the city’s triumphs in recent years, such as the inclusion of the city in the Formula One circuit, which has given Valencia enormous international profile and consolidated the city as a brilliant organiser of major events.

The America’s Cup has brought many benefits to Valencia, but perhaps, as Silvestre points out, it is Valencia that has brought the greatest benefits to the America’s Cup, giving it a much needed popularity outside the United States and transforming it from an elitist sport into a popular one. Furthermore, although the 32^nd and 33^rd editions in Valencia may be the last, the fact of the matter is that the teams are still here in their bases, bringing work and prestige to the city.

If anything has become the symbol of the modern Valencia, then it must be Santiago Calatrava’s city of Arts and Sciences, a space age leisure and learning complex in the re-routed river bed park, where thousands of tourists arrive every month to enjoy and marvel at the originality of the buildings’ designs, even before they go inside to immerse themselves in science, opera or natural history.

The city expectantly awaits the completion of the high speed train connection (AVE) with Madrid, which will bring the city within 90 minutes of the capital, with all the business and tourism benefits that this entails. Furthermore, when the network extends north to Castellón and south to Alicante, Valencia will become even closer to the rest of Europe, and vice versa.

The growth of Valencia’s port has been spectacular, overtaking Barcelona, and it is hoped will become the gateway to Europe for trading relations with Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Valencia’s reputation as a trading centre is shown by two of its most important places, the modern Trade Fair, where some of Spain’s most successful fairs, such as furniture, textile and ceramics take place, and the medieval Lonja building, declared a World Heritage site and built as a centre for silk trade merchants in the 15^th century, when Valencia was at the heart of the silk trade, and where the world’s first letter of credit was signed.

Today however, and despite a recent article in sensationalist press magnate Rupert Murdoch’s Financial Times by a reporter, an Oxford graduate in English rather than economics, who has only lived in Spain since 2008, and expresses his views on Valencia from the comfort of his armchair in Madrid, Valencia is largely a city of service industries, never having really experienced an industrial revolution, which is why, with its attractive climate and geography, it has attracted millions of foreign visitors and residents and, although it has attracted such prestigious manufacturers as the Ford Automobile Company to set up shop here, to attempt to compete with other industrial cities would be counter-productive in a city whose quality of life depends on its light, as captured by its most internationally known painter, Sorrolla.

Whether you read the Sun of the Financial Times, or both, Valencia remains a city that people love to visit and stay in, with a modern efficient transport system, and a comfortable size that still enables its residents to reach any part of the city on foot, ebven the beach with its golden light and popular restaurants at reasonable prices.

Valencia envies no other city as far as gastronomy is concerned, and its rice, citric fruits and pastries all demonstrate an openness to external influences and a welcoming attitude to innovation; the areas pastries for example are a clear example of the Arab influence.

Silvestre Senent live his work with passion and wears his love for his city on his sleeve, although if there is any greater passion in his life it is his family, and now especially his five grandchildren who, he claims, give him enormous satisfaction, but without the weight of responsibility that one’s own children give.

He is also grateful to have been able to work with Valencia’s charismatic Mayoress, Rita Barberá, whom he describes as a person who works 24 hours a day for the city with enormous energy and determination.

We were accompanied on our visit by Silvestre Senent’s daughter, now a successful lawyer, who mentioned in leaving that her father is also a great joke teller, although we didn’t have time to find out as the celebration of the day’s Mascletá called him away to his duties