Spanish Oddities
Spain mourns its oldest Mayor
By m.p. - Jan 9, 2008 - 4:27 PM
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The oldest Mayor in Spain, Gregorio García Antonio, has died after collapsing at a ceremony to lay the first stone of a new residential care centre in Sinlabajos, the small village in Ávila he had led since 1979. He had his 92nd birthday in December.
The Secretary of State for Social Security, Amparo Valcarce, was one of the dignitaries present who tried to revive the veteran Socialist Mayor at the ceremony on Wednesday, after what was at first thought to have been a fall. A medical team then worked on him for close for to an hour before it was decided there was nothing more which could be done to save his life.
Gregorio García Antonio was in Madrid last July, where he met the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in Moncloa. It’s understood the two men discussed the new care centre planned for his village.
His death follows, less than a year ago, that of Spain’s longest-serving Mayor, Luis Gómez de la Sota, who died last February at the age of 89. He had been Mayor of Solórzano, Cantabria for almost 45 years.
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