What Can We Do as Foreigners
To Improve Our Mexican Cities?

by Marsh Cassady

There is no such thing as a utopian society. In fact, there couldn’t be. What one person would consider utopian, another would see as a failure. I have liked Baja. Ever since I first visited in 1980 I’ve wanted to live here. Nothing has changed my mind.

However, like any society or culture or government, Baja is not perfect.

I was asked for this issue to write about questions foreigners might like to ask the newly-elected administration, both local and state. I decided to ask members of my writing workshop, as well as a one or two others, what they would like to know. First, here are a few questions I have, some of which also were touched upon by others.

1. How can the police be paid more? If police were paid decent wages, it seems to me this would cut down on the tendency for bribery

2. My second question also has to do with police. In recent months, I’ve read of various cases of police brutality in Baja. One case in particular was reported in our sister newspaper, ECOS de Rosarito. There was absolutely no reason for this to have happened, especially under the circumstances that were reported. What can be done to stop this sort of thing? Don’t the police realize that this scares away tourists and potential tourists, thus indirectly affecting their own lives?

3. Without mentioning specifics, I’m acquainted with a case where someone was injured and property damaged by an obviously unethical builder. When the person who had been injured tried to get financial help, an attorney told him everyone who could have helped instead had been bribed. What can be done to stop this sort of thing?

4. Another question, maybe the most important one in that the problem is so wide ranging, is what can be done to curb the increasing drug problems and related violence, within the City of Rosarito and in the state as a whole. The problems have increased drastically during the past few years and continue to increase. So long as drugs are illegal, there will be problems, but they need to be curtailed. What specific actions can be developed to clean up our area?

Americans and other foreigners living here have many other questions. My partner Jim Kitchen wants to know what can be done to improve security in the area. Maybe this goes back to my questions about the police and drugs. But one Mexican man once told a group of us that “corruption exists at every level of government, top to bottom.” He made this statement about ten years ago, and I like to think it’s no longer completely true. But as evidenced by the injured person mentioned above, it certainly still exists.

Specifically, Jim wants to know : “What can be done to discourage break-ins, car theft, and people’s being killed or injured.” Yes, these sorts of problems exist in every major city in the world.. But that doesn’t make it okay.

Dave Eliot asks, among other things: “What can be done to clean up the beaches, to make them more attractive to tourists? And what can be done to cut down on lines at the border.” The latter, of course, is not a question of local and state governments here in Baja being able to do anything about this working alone. However, can the U.S. and Mexico work together to make things better? Dave is concerned with tourism. We all know people who won’t visit the area. What can be done to make them feel safe here or to better attract them.

Robbie Walker asks of the new administration what their policy is on “the constitutional amendment allowing foreigners to own land outright?” Originally, I think, the policy against foreign ownership of land near the border, land and sea, was that if aliens were allowed to own land, then perhaps foreign powers could control the borders. But that policy was developed decades back.

A question Peter Fowler asks is one that affects us all. Peter says: Will the new mayor “consider (if he hasn't already) connecting some of the streets parallel to the beach so that when Benito Juarez gets jammed for any reason, such as an accident, traffic can still move.” As we all know, our area is experiencing tremendous growth. This problem, which has existed for years, will only continue to worsen. And we’ve all experienced times when there have been food tasting events, for instance, which take up several lanes of the Boulevard.

Related to this is the problem of water. With the explosive building growth, more and more water is going to be needed. How can Rosarito handle this? Is there an effective plan in the works for desalinization?

Melinda Bates has two questions. First: “Is there a plan to connect the Baja 2000 road with the toll road going south, at Popotla. [If so], when would that happen? If that's not going to happen, can you require large trucks to use the toll road, and perhaps lower the toll to encourage them to do so? These huge trucks heading south for five miles on the free road, past Calafia, are a nightmare.”

The second question is one touched upon in the comments of several others:

“Will you purchase some anti-graffiti paint and have city workers paint over graffiti on public spaces, and, provide it either free or at low cost to merchants/home owners to use on their buildings? There is a theory of public safety called the ‘broken window’ theory. The idea is that people who see broken windows that don't get fixed interpret that to mean no one cares about the neighborhood, so they are free to do whatever bad things they want. When broken windows, and other trashed infrastructures are fixed, the message is: people (including the authorities) care about this place; I could get into trouble for messing it up; I should just move along.” Melinda explains that by covering areas with anti-graffiti paint, it is possible to just hose off the graffiti.

Kris Zane asks: “Is there such a thing in the City of Rosarito as Code Enforcement in [regard] to property.” He further wants to know: “If there is a vacant lot, is the owner responsible for keeping it clean of trash and debris?” He says, “There is a vacant lot down the street from my house that literally looks like a garbage dump with chunks of concrete, mounds of trash, and graffiti [on] the few walls that are standing.” Kris also points out that there are many homes that have debris in the front yard, which is both “unsightly” and “depressing.” He wants to know if the new mayor will address this issue.

Graffiti often appears as the messages of street gangs. So another question can be: Does the new administration have any plans to consider what can be done to lessen the influence of such gangs?

Most of these questions or similar questions can be asked of most city and state administration, no matter where they are located. Certainly, they can’t be remedied by the wave of a magic wand. But it is important to know that someone is trying his or her best to try to do something about them.