City Mayor Rafael Suberví Bonilla said the statement made by Felix Bautista, director of the Oficina Coordinadora y Fiscalizadora de Obras del Estado, that the newly-built Winston Churchill Avenue "boulevard" would have to go eventually was "nonsense." The municipality spent RD$40 million to refurbish the boulevard walk and install lighting from the 27 de Febrero to the Gustavo Mejía Ricart intersection. When the construction of the avenue was announced, it met then with opposition by the Ministry of Public Works which called it not a priority work. Now the director of the President’s office that coordinates and supervises government works, said over the weekend, "In honor of the truth, in time it has to be done [torn down], because if you think of the bottlenecks that form between the 27 de Febrero Avenue and John F. Kennedy Avenue, it is only logical that that avenue be wider so that traffic can flow," said Bautista. He said the alternative would be to build an elevated highway. He advocated for more coordination between the Ministry of Public Works and the municipality, since the funding for both comes from taxes paid by the Dominican people. The proposal of the government would topple the trees of this boulevard, such as occurred along the 27 de Febrero Avenue where hundreds of trees which eliminated to make way for new traffic lanes. At both sides of the Winston Churchill boulevard fast food restaurants and shopping malls are located. Candidates to mayor for Santo Domingo, Rafael Corporán de los Santos (PRSC) and Roberto Salcedo (PLD) said that the boulevard was not a city priority, and criticized that Suberví underwent its construction knowing that the avenue would have to be expanded in the near future. The boulevard may be spared for quite a long time though. A recent Gallup poll shows, nevertheless, that the next mayor of Santo Domingo is likely to be Dr. José Francisco Peña Gómez, of the same party, the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, as the present mayor of Santo Domingo.
