Begging, small town news and paradise

18 January 2007

What living I make (and I barely scrape by) comes mostly from reporting for a couple of small local papers. Sometimes it pays the rent and electic and phone bill, and I do a little business writing to stretch my income.

My own writing doesn’t bring in anything (and I really don’t expect it to… Mexican history is an esoteric subject, and the readers generally aren’t in a position to pay for the material) and the Mex Files, which takes up even more time than figuring out the local chincanery and egos involved of your local gas board members, sometimes isn’t as well edited, or written as I’d like. But, without donations, I have to do other things. The pay pal links are there for a reason… somehow I have to pay for the computer, and keep eating while I’m putting time in here (and a decent haircut would be nice — even though I’m not going anywhere special).

Anyway… having to make my living by following the ins and outs of small town politics, the article below caught my attention. Toll roads, new developments, preserving ecological preserves, septic tank connections. Hey, this could be Alpine Texas (or West Des Moines Iowa, or Geneva New York or any small town I’ve lived in over the years). Change the names (though in Alpine, I probably wouldn’t) and this article could be almost anywhere in the big country north of Mexico. Et tu en arcadia ego!

City gov’t braces for combative meeting

By Bob Kelly/Special to The Miami Herald
El UniversalJueves 18 de enero de 2007

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Gto. – City officials are bracing for a second public meeting Thursday night after Tuesday´s session ended with boos and whistling when questions on contentious development issues were cut short.Officials promised all questions would be answered at Thursday´s 7:30 p.m. meeting, which has been moved to the 400-plus-seat Teatro Angela Peralta after Tuesday´s three-hour session skirted issues raised by a growing number of groups claiming illegal and unchecked development threatens the colonial heritage of this 450-year-old city.Mayor Jesús Correa, urban development director Ángel Gastelum and three consultants talked for two hours about the long-range plan that will be presented this summer as part of San Miguel´s application to UNESCO to be declared a world heritage site, seen as a boon to tourism, the city´s major revenue producer.The audience of Mexican and foreign residents in the 82-seat theater at the Biblioteca Pública and some 100 listening outside to a speaker came alive when the third hour brought questions dealing with more immediate issues.

The meeting was ended soon after environmentalist César Arias said the city´s long-range plan opened up much of the area northeast of San Miguel to development. The last plan, approved in 1993, restricted development in that area because of environmental concerns, Arias said, especially the additional sewage that would pass through ditches on its way to the Presa Allende.

Arias also claimed the plan reduced the environmental buffer zone around the Charco del Ingenio, a 240-acre nature preserve, that the city adopted a year ago.

Arias, who heads the non-profit group operating the preserve, persuaded former Mayor Luis Alberto Villarreal and city council to expand the buffer zone and strengthen restraints on development a year ago after homes were built to the edge of the preserve and developers planned homes on lots not connected to sewers and too small for septic tanks.

After the meeting, former city ecology director Alberto Morales said the city´s plan would allow more residential development in 18 natural and environmental areas protected by the 1993 plan.

Morales is a member of Basta Ya, the first of the 10 groups that have emerged the past two months to protest the pace and nature of development and the city´s failure to publicly discuss a broad range of issues.

The audience applauded several times when Gastelum said a priority would be dealing with the declining levels in the aquifer that is the city´s major water source.

Gastelum said the plan calls for efforts to persuade farmers to cut water use, which is roughly 85 percent of consumption.

Experts have been warning for several years the city could face a serious problem in 15-20 years because water is being pumped out of the aquifer twice as fast as rainwater is flowing in.

At an earlier meeting, Correa disclosed plans for a four-lane highway from San Miguel to Guanajuato, the state capital, and a toll road around the city connecting the roads to Celaya, Querétaro and Dolores Hidalgo.

Correa said Gov. Juan Manuel Oliva had promised to support a four-lane highway to Dolores Hidalgo and Guanajuato but he did not say whether it would be new construction or a widening of existing two-lane routes.

The toll road bypass, which Correa said would be designed to attract business development, also would for the first time link roads to Querétaro and Dolores Hidalgo, as well as Celaya, the major routes for vehicle traffic into the congested town center.