Since the beginning of this week, in seven squares and walks in the city of Córdoba, “guardaplazas” have been working: interns dependent on the Municipality who are in charge of ensuring that green spaces are safe and that acts of vandalism are not committed.
They started through the squares Alberdi (General Paz neighborhood), Colón, Paseo Sobremonte, De la Intendencia (the three in the Alberdi neighborhood), Rivadavia (Alta Córdoba), Jerónimo del Barco, Antigua Cervecería (the two in Alto Alberdi) and Alem (the Pueyrredón).
The common denominator of these spaces is that they were all recently recovered and valued by the Municipality of Córdoba through the incorporation of modern infrastructure, after remaining abandoned for years, without investment in improvement and maintenance works. Although they are currently only in seven squares in the city, the idea of the Municipality is that they manage to cover a total of 64 green spaces.
The secretary of the Environment, Jorge Folloni, remarked that the park guards “do not do maintenance, but security with their presence, guaranteeing the rules of proper use of the places and that the Code of Coexistence is respected.”
They must also be careful that there are no risky elements in the square such as exposed cables, branches at risk of detaching or any damaged element that represents risks to third parties. “They are trained to detect these dangers to notify the corresponding areas and have the elements to provide first aid,” said the official.
But if the situation becomes more complex, they must resort to the support of the patrols of the Citizen Prevention and Coexistence Program (Precon), which since April have controlled different commercial corridors in the city and have a coexistence promoter and a provincial police officer.