The 81 new mayors who took office
Monday are a varied bunch. The National
Liberation Party (PLN) certainly carried
the day in December’s elections, winning
59 seats, but municipal leaders also include
representatives of local parties; experienced
politicians, as well as newcomers; 10
women; and a range of ages from 24 to 68.
With the administration of President
Oscar Arias touting plans to provide mayors
with increased funding and introduce
legal reforms that would give them more
clout (TT, Jan. 26), these leaders may have
a more prominent role than their predecessors.
The Tico Times asked several mayors
from around the country to explain their
plans to address the biggest challenges facing
their cantons. In selecting this group
from the 81 new leaders, we attempted to
represent various political parties and both
genders, rich cantons and poor, areas of
booming tourism development and those
that historically have been neglected.
The Institute for Municipal Development
(IFAM) provided information on
budget and territorial extension, showing
the vast differences among the resources
available to each mayor.
Excerpts follow:
SAN JOSÉ,
San José
Johnny Araya, 49
Agricultural engineer
National Liberation
Party (PLN)
Second term
Budget: ¢25.76 billion (approximately $49.5 million)
Territorial extension (square kilometers): 44.62
Goals: This is Araya’s second term as a popularly elected mayor, but he’s been a municipal leader for 20 years. He served on the city’s Municipal Council from 1982-1986 and was appointed the Municipal Executive, then the mayor, from 1991-2002, when the first-ever popular municipal elections were held. This political longevity has made Araya a prominent figure on a national level, and also a hard man to interview, as two weeks of our unsuccessful attempts proved. In his lofty inauguration speech on Monday, however, Araya outlined some of his plans, foremost among them the urban renewal proposal “San José Posible,” which seeks to make the downtown area more pedestrian-friendly and reorganize traffic. He also pledged his support for the Tropical Architecture Institute’s proposal to plant trees and plants to make San José a greener place. Security-wise, Araya plans to create a Citizen Safety Council to coordinate the municipality’s efforts with the Public Security Ministry, Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ), Immigration and other organizations working to tackle the city’s crime problems. In the speech, he urged the Legislative Assembly and Executive Branch to push for reforms that would decentralize Costa Rica, Latin America’s most centralized nation, by giving mayors more funding and responsibility.
ESCAZÚ,
San José
Marco Antonio Segura, 67
Economist, accountant
PLN
Second term
Budget: ¢4.88 billion ($9.4 million)
Territorial extension: 34.49
Goals: Segura told The Tico Times that his canton, which boasts the highest human development index in the country, nonetheless suffers a yawning gap between rich and poor, a problem he plans to address by making Escazú the country’s “most educated canton.” Building a home for the EscazúTechnicalHigh School, now open for two years but temporarily holding classes in elementary schools (TT, July 7, 2006), is a priority, as is continuing career classes offered through the National Training Institute (INA). Segura also plans to improve citizen safety – an area in which he said the canton “isn’t as bad as the rest of the country, but we’re not OK” – by installing five video surveillance cameras in highcrime areas this year and making mobile technology accessible to the Municipal Police. In addition, Segura plans to continue improving the local government’s online services, “taking the municipality to the park” by allowing residents to search files or pay municipal bills using their computers or cell phones.
TIBÁS, San José
Jorge Antonio Salas, 53
Lawyer
Citizen Action Party (PAC)
First term
Budget: ¢1.73 billion ($3.3 million)
Territorial extension: 8.15
Goals: Salas says his top priority will be trash collection, and that’s not surprising. His canton has become infamous for what was arguably the biggest municipal disaster in recent memory: the Tibás garbage crisis. For months, hundreds of tons of trash piled up on the streets of the northern San José suburb, causing the proliferation of odors, rats, and mosquitoes, as well as protests that drew national attention. The problem was solved only after the government declared a state of emergency in Tibás and the National Emergency Commission (CNE) took over trash collection (TT, May 19, 2006). Salas, who was an advisor to the Municipal Council during the crisis and was elected as its president in February 2006, said the problem was that because of bad blood between the council and then-mayor Percy Rodríguez of the Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC). The council, which must authorize municipal spending, wouldn’t give Rodríguez the money for additional trash-collection equipment. Now, Salas says, the municipality has solved the problem by allotting funds to repair its trucks and rent two others. He said he expects to have better relations with his Municipal Council based on his past experience, and says he supports proposed reforms to give mayors a vote on the councils. Other priorities in Tibás will be instituting a recycling program through cooperation with a private foundation, road repair, and creating a zoning plan for the canton.
MONTES DE OCA, San José
Fernando Trejos, 52
Union for Change (UPC)
Lawyer
First term
Budget: ¢2.12 billion ($4 million)
Territorial extension: 15.16
Goals: The 48-year Montes de Oca resident has watched his canton, home to the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and Universidad Latina, become home to nightmare traffic and rising crime, with the infamous Calle de la Amargura – the “Street of Bitterness” and thumping nightclubs – drawing near-constant media attention. Trejos wants to revive the canton’s Municipal Police force, abandoned five years ago, in part by increasing municipal taxes. The canton’s roads take a beating because traffic from San José to eastern Central Valley towns such as Tres Ríos and Cartago must pass through small roads in San Pedro that weren’t intended for buses and trucks, according to Trejos, who served as Labor Minister during the administration of President Abel Pacheco (2002-2006). He plans to use municipal funds and solicit external aid to improve the roads.
UPALA, Alajuela
Juan Acevedo, 53
Businessman
PLN
Second term
Budget: ¢503 million ($967,000)
Territorial extension: 1,508.7
Goals:With one of the smallest municipal budgets in the country despite the canton’s ample size, Acevedo said his top priority during his second term will be finishing a project that began during his first: a canton-wide cadastre, or property mapping system, that will give the municipality a more accurate view of the property taxes its residents should be paying. The municipality has been working in conjunction with the National Cadastre Plan to update its data, hoping to reduce municipal tax evasion, which in Upala is approximately 61%, Acevedo said. Because Upala, one of the country’s poorest cantons, doesn’t have major tourism draws or multinational corporations to boost income, improving property assessment and tax collection is the only way to give the municipality more resources, he said.What would he do with increased funds? He’s working on improvements to the sewer network – a group of University of Costa Rica (UCR) students have been visiting Upala to help with preliminary studies – and creating a zoning plan for the canton. He said the Northern Zone Development Council, which the central government created last year to allow municipal leaders from Upala and neighboring cantons to meet with authorities from the Presidency Ministry and other central institutions, “will help a great deal because it provides more direct access to the government.”
FLORES,Heredia
Jenny Alfaro
Business administrator
PAC
First term
Budget: ¢443 million ($852,903)
Territorial extension: 6.96
Goals: Flores’ first priority is attending to a dilapidated aqueduct that has 20% of her canton’s population without water. She says it “hasn’t received any maintenance for years – they’ve been putting patches on it.” Second, she plans to find out what’s holding up Flores’ zoning plan, which was completed three years ago but since then has been awaiting approval by the National Institute for Housing and Urban Development (INVU). Once approved, the plan will allow the small canton to organize its development, restructure the municipality and make other changes. Improving the municipality’s treatment of its clients, creating a “preventive police force” to address rising crime, and coordinating with the central government to establish a daycare center so single moms with limited resources can hold down a job are among Alfaro’s other goals. For mayors’ universal priority – improving infrastructure – she plans to put power in the hands of neighborhood associations and district councils, granting them 25-50% of the infrastructure budget. “It’s the people from the barrio who know what the needs are,” Alfaro said. “Those councils were created on paper, but they haven’t had power.”
AGUIRRE, Puntarenas
Oscar Monge, 60
Author
Aguirre Labor Organization
First term
Budget: ¢860 million ($1.7 million)
Territorial Extension: 543.77
Goals: Monge –whose latest literary creation is “El Último Sello” (“The Last Seal”), loosely based on corruption in his central Pacific canton – says he’s going to follow the letter of the Maritime Zone Law when it comes to the area’s coveted beachfront spots. (In the past, demolitions of structures built within the protected zone have caused controversy and protests in Aguirre, as in other coastal cantons.) As mayor,Monge will let the Comptroller General’s Office dictate the municipality’s enforcement of the law, he said. He also plans to take a naturefriendly approach to stimulating tourism: in his canton’s hot spots such as Manuel Antonio and Quepos, tourism is growing out of control, damaging the environment but also providing employment to many families. To create a better balance,Monge will push eco-tourism projects and lobby for the Legislative Assembly to approve plans for the Central Pacific Technological Institute, to train people in Quepos and the surrounding area for better tourismindustry jobs. Finally, Monge plans to improve municipal tax collection to boost the budget to ¢3 billion (approximately $5.8 million) by 2009.
GOLFITO, Puntarenas
Jimmy José Cubillo, 45
Business advisor
PLN
Second term (served as Municipal
Executive, 1996-1998)
Budget: ¢591 million ($1.1 million).
Territorial extension: 1,753.96
Goals: According to Cubillo, Golfito is a canton of terrible contrasts. Despite natural resources and a booming investment climate, it’s one of the country’s poorest cantons, with a 39% poverty rate. Its population is dropping, he says, though the opposite should be taking place, given the area’s potential. To address this problem, which Cubillo attributes to central government neglect and local failures, the mayor wants to offer simpler, speedier services to both local and foreign investors, and improve infrastructure. He hopes both steps will attract more businesses and create jobs. He also seeks to decentralize the government of the sprawling canton, where two sizeable towns –Puerto Jiménez and Pavones – lie approximately 170 km and 80 km from Golfito through circuitous land routes, making it next to impossible for their residents to access municipal services. By creating district councils in both towns and empowering them, rather than requiring that the mayor sign off on most decisions, Cubillo said living conditions will improve. Though many of his colleagues say mayors need more power, not less, Golfito’s new leader said, “I don’t think any authority is lost by decentralizing.”
LIMÓN, Limón
Eduardo Barboza, 43
Lawyer
PLN
First term
Budget: ¢1.97 billion ($3.8 million)
Territorial extension: 1,765.79
Goals: “Because Limón is the face of Costa Rica in the Caribbean, we need a privileged position,” Barboza told The Tico Times. He was referring to plans to build a megaport in his coastal canton, but he could have been speaking in general terms: over the years, Limón, plagued by unemployment and crime, has long been neglected by the central government. The ambitious Barboza plans to make Limón the most developed canton in the country, pinning his hopes on a new oil refinery that would provide 1,000 jobs; the mega-port, which President Oscar Arias threw his weight behind during a visit to Limón earlier this month; and increased cooperation between the municipality and private businesses. Coordination with the Arias administration “couldn’t be better” so far, said Barboza, who plans to install surveillance cameras on every street corner in central Limón within the first few months of his term in an effort to give citizens “the chance to walk calmly on the street again.”
LIBERIA, Guanacaste
Carlos Luis Marín, 43
Administrative assistant
PLN
First term
Budget: ¢1.67 billion ($3.2 million)
Territorial extension: 1,436.47
Goals: For Marín, it’s crucial that Liberia prepare its citizens to take advantage of the real estate and tourism boom that surrounds them – a theme other mayors of cantons with high levels of foreign investment, such as Aguirre and Escazú, echoed. The new mayor, who spoke to The Tico Times before a municipal conference at Casa Presidencial in San José last month, said he hopes to work closely with the central government to accomplish this goal. In particular, he plans to work with the Labor Ministry to create a Liberia employment directory that would allow businesses opening up shop in the canton to find local laborers and services to meet their needs. His other goals for his four-year term include improving infrastructure and opening a GuanacasteMuseum in Liberia’s old police headquarters.
SANTA CRUZ, Guanacaste
Jorge Enrique Chavarría, 55
Administrator, veterinarian
PLN
First term
Budget: ¢2.38 billion ($4.6 million)
Territorial extension: 1,312.27
Goals: As the new mayor of Santa Cruz, Chavarría will be in charge of managing booming tourism destinations such as Tamarindo, where one of his predecessors ran into some trouble – Pastor Gómez was suspended last year by a San José criminal court investigating an allegedly shady concessions deal. Chavarría, unsurprisingly, asserts that “we’re going to ensure the laws are complied with… everything will be normal.” He said his top priorities include improving infrastructure and building a garbage facility near the town of Santa Cruz to improve sanitary conditions in the canton. He also hopes to give the town a Santa Cruz Theater for folkloric presentations and other cultural attractions, and a modern health clinic. Last but not least, Chavarría said he plans to work with the Public Security Ministry to expand the Municipal Police force from 13 officers to 98, improve training, and focus the new forces on Tamarindo. Though a first-time mayor, Chavarría said he has been involved in municipal politics in Santa Cruz for years.
The New Mayors
SAN JOSÉ
Central Johnny Araya, National Liberation Party (PLN)
Escazú Marco Antonio Segura, PLN
Desamparados Maureen Fallas, PLN
Puriscal Jorge Luis Chaves, PLN
Tarrazú Iván Suárez, PLN
Aserrí Mario Morales, PLN
Mora Gilberto Monge, PLN
Goicoechea Oscar Enrique Figueroa, PLN
Santa Ana Gerardo Oviedo, PLN
Alajuelita Tomás Poblador, PLN
Vásquez de Coronado Leonardo Herrera, PLN
Acosta Rónald Durán, PLN
Tibás Jorge Antonio Salas, Citizen Action Party (PAC)
Moravia Edgar Vargas, PAC
Montes de Oca Fernando Trejos, Union for Change (UPC)
Turrubares Rafael Vindas, Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC)
Dota José Valverde, PLN
Curridabat Edgar Mora, Curridabat 21st Century Party
Pérez Zeledón Rosibel Ramos, PUSC
León Cortés Leonardo Quesada, PLN
ALAJUELA
Central Joyce Zürcher, PLN
San Ramón Raúl Antonio Gómez, PLN
Grecia Giovanny Arguedas, PLN
San Mateo Erwen Yanán Masis, PUSC
Atenas Wilberth Martín Aguilar, PUSC
Naranjo Eugenio Padilla, PLN
Palmares Luis Carlos Castillo, PLN
Poás José Joaquín Brenes, PLN
Orotina Emilio Jesús Rodríguez, PLN
San Carlos Alfredo Córdoba , PLN
Alfaro Ruiz Marco Vinicio Rodríguez, PLN
Valverde Vega Víctor Manuel Rojas, PUSC
Upala Juan Acevedo, PLN
Los Chiles Santiago Millón, PLN
Guatuso Fidel Condega, PLN
CARTAGO
Cartago Rolando Alberto Brenes, PLN
Paraíso Marvin Solano, Libertarian Movement (ML)
La Unión Julio Antonio Rojas, PLN
Jiménez Jorge Humberto Solano, PLN
Turrialba Luis Alfonso Pérez, PLN
Alvarado Angel Raquel López, PLN
Oreamuno Marco Vinicio Redondo, PAC
El Guarco William Adolfo Cerdas, PLN
HEREDIA
Heredia José Manuel Ulate, PLN
Barva Mercedes Hernández, PLN
Santo Domingo Raúl Isidro Bolaños, PLN
Santa Bárbara Rolando Hidalgo, PLN
San Rafael Alberto Vargas, PAC
San Isidro Elvia Villalobos, PLN
Belén Horacio Alvarado, PUSC
Flores Jenny Alfaro, PAC
San Pablo Aracelly Salas, PUSC
Sarapiquí Pedro Rojas, PLN
GUANACASTE
Liberia Carlos Luis Marín, PLN
Nicoya Lorenzo Rosales, PLN
Santa Cruz Jorge Enrique Chavarría, PLN
Bagaces Luis Angel Rojas, PLN
Carrillo Carlos Gerardo Cantillo, PLN
Cañas Katia María Solórzano, PLN
Abangares Jorge Calvo, PLN
Tilarán Jovel Arias, PUSC
Nandayure Luis Rodríguez, National Union Party (PUN)
La Cruz Carlos Matías Gonzaga, PLN
Hojancha Juan Rafael Marín, PLN
PUNTARENAS
Puntarenas Agne Gómez, PLN
Esparza Dagoberto Venegas, PUSC
Buenos Aires Primo Feliciano Alvarez, PLN
Montes de Oro Alvaro Jiménez, PLN
Osa Jorge Alberto Cole, PLN
Aguirre Oscar Monge Aguirre, Labor Organization
Golfito Jimmy José Cubillo, PLN
Coto Brus Rafael Angel Navarro, PUSC
Parrita Gerardo Róger Acuña, PLN
Corredores Gerardo Ramírez, PLN
Garabito Marvin Elizondo, PLN
LIMON
Central Eduardo Barboza, PLN
Pococí Enrique Alfaro Vargas, PLN
Siquirres Edgar Cambronero, Communal Action Party
Talamanca Rugeli Morales, PUSC
Matina Lorenzo Colphan, PLN
Guácimo Gerardo Fuentes, PLN
Source: Institute for Municipal Development (IFAM)
