hey promised change, and as Spains new crop of leftist mayors with roots in

theindignado movement began their first day on the job, they kept their word, shunning
official cars for the metro and stepping in to suspend home evictions.
Barcelonas mayor, Ada Colau, began her day in office on Monday in the district of Nou
Barris, which made headlines last November when 15 families faced evictions on the
same day. She had been informed of several other families at risk of eviction for falling
behind on their mortgage payments, and when she arrived, she found a family
including two children aged two and seven sitting in the street with their suitcases.
Their nerves were on edge, she said.
Colau called the familys lender, Bankia, who assured her that the eviction had been
suspended. She then dispatched another city councillor to make sure that the other
families at risk remained in their homes. Were working to find a more stable solution,
she told reporters afterwards.
In Valencia, the ecologist Joan Rib began his day by cycling to city hall. His Comproms
movement, which put an end to more than two decades of the centre-right Peoples
party (PP) rule in the city, has made increasing sustainable mobility options a priority.
As she was sworn in as Madrids new mayor on Saturday, Manuela Carmena insisted she
would continue to take the metro to work rather than make use of the mayors official
car. And on Monday she did just that, smiling at the handful of journalists that gathered
to follow her just before 8am. Standing rather than sitting in the carriage, she was
congratulated by several well-wishers. I voted for you, said one passenger excitedly.
In Galicia, the three new mayors from leftist coalitions made headlines when they
declined to attend a mass and religious procession on Sunday, rebuffing a tradition for
officials in the region since 1669.
Their decision was taken out of respect for Spain as a secular state, the new mayor of
Santiago de Compostela, Martio Noriega wrote in an article on the Praza Pblica
website. Im one of those who thinks its not right for a mayor to ask the apostles to do
away with unemployment and corruption. Instead, a mayor should be able to put in
place policies aimed at fostering transparency and creating jobs, he wrote.
Noriegas counterpart in A Corua, Xulio Ferreiro, said he would instead pay homage to
the Galician mathematician Maria Wonenburger, who died a year ago at the age of 86
and was the first Spaniard to secure a Fulbright scholarship for doctoral studies in
mathematics.
Jorge Surez, the new mayor of Ferrol, said he would also give the religious ceremony a
pass, pointing to the separation of church and state. Their stance contrasts with that of
the central PP government, which has repeatedly angered secularists in recent years by

handing out the countrys top policing award to a statue of the Virgin Mary and stating
that Saint Teresa was intervening to help the country through the economic crisis.