Benidorm is restoring the names of the mayors who have governed the city since 1697 as part of its 700th anniversary celebrations

Benidorm City Council, through the Department of Historical and Cultural Heritage, has recovered the names of all the mayors who have governed the city from 1697 to the present day. This list includes more than 170 Benidorm residents and aims to "deepen our understanding of another aspect of our history; in this case, the institutional aspect," explained Ana Pellicer, the councillor for the department. This recovery work is part of the initiatives promoted by the Department of Historical Heritage to coincide with the 700th anniversary of the founding of Benidorm as a municipality with its own legal entity. It was carried out "by delving into the municipal documents we keep in our Archives, which have allowed us to identify all the mayors, starting with Jaime Orts, who was mayor in 1697 and is the first we have managed to name, and extending to Antonio Pérez Pérez, our current mayor."

This list includes the names of all these individuals and the years in which, according to official documents, they served as mayor of Benidorm. Among them, surnames such as Orts, Baldó, Llorca, Llinares, Zaragoza, Such, Fuster, Vives, Ballester, Berdín, Thous, and Pérez are common. Short terms of office, lasting only a few months, are also followed by others that were more than ten years.

Interestingly, three mayors of Benidorm have also served as presidents of the Alicante Provincial Council: Manuel Orts Cano, who was mayor in 1909 and president of the Provincial Council between 1914 and 1916; Pedro Zaragoza Orts, mayor from 1950 to 1966 and provincial president between 1966 and 1970; and the current mayor of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, who also presides over the Provincial Council during his current term and who today celebrates 10 years as mayor.

Councilor Ana Pellicer emphasized that, once this restoration work was completed, "a vinyl record was created with the entire list of mayors and the official anniversary logo, and today it was placed on one of the windows of the Mayors' Gallery, thus completing the paintings that were once made of the mayors whose photographs were preserved, and the image of the Virgin of Suffrage as perpetual mayor of Benidorm." This Mayors' Gallery is located on the second floor of City Hall, next to the Mayor's office. The councilor also indicated that the complete list will also be "available to all citizens who wish to consult it, because we believe it is the best way to highlight our history and remember these people who preceded us as public servants and who led our City Council."

Finally, Pellicer recalled that "over the past few months, the Department of Historical and Cultural Heritage has carried out a wide variety of activities to commemorate this '700th Anniversary' and involve all citizens," ranging from "a fun and entertaining initiative for children, such as adapting the 'Seagull Game,' to this work of historical and collective memory, naming all the Benidorm residents who had the honor of leading our city as mayors," he concluded.