The Baja Real Estate Blog Serving Baja California Mexico
The Baja Real Estate Blog has information on how current events are affecting the Baja California Real Estate Market. We include current news articles and the latest Baja real estate listings with special attention to Baja Real Estate "Fire-Sales".
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ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO---Mayor Hugo Torres in his second State of The City Address highlighted gains made in public safety and stated such improvements would continue to be the main goal of the administration.
Among accomplishments, Torres cited a 22 percent decline in crime from January to October of 2009 from the same period of the previous year, bring Rosarito to its lowest crime level in five years, the biggest gain in Baja.
Torres spoke Tuesday evening in City Hall plaza to an audience of hundreds that included Baja California Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan plus numerous state and federal officials as well as city residents.
The mayor cited reforming the police department, establishing tougher standards, more incentives for officers, strict guidelines for public officials, military and state law enforcement support as key to the gains.
Torres is in the second year of a three-year term that began in December of 2007.
The mayor also cited actions made to make the city more welcoming to visitors, including establishing a Tourist Police Force, bilingual parking ticket, ombudsman’s office and special city department for visitor assistance.
Rosarito also has made strong efforts for its youth through new programs in the schools including expanded drug prevention, extensive sports programs and breaking ground for a Boys & Girls Club, the first phase of which is scheduled to open next year.
In city infrastructure, about $20 million is dedicated to paving of 189 city roads and new Olympic-sized pool constructed.
Council members Norma Gutierrez, Rosa Maria Cornejo, Manuel Cipres, Santiago Lepro and Rafael Crosthwaite also spoke of city accomplishments during the past two years.
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO---A section of the city best known for housing the creation of beautiful things is the first to benefit from a new volunteer city beautification effort.
Sculptures including Neptune and others created by local artists have been installed along Popotla Boulevard, south of the main downtown, over the past several years.
Popotla is a section of Rosarito known for handmade furniture, metal sculpting, tile and glass work, art galleries and much more. It is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Rosarito.
Now the effort, organized by Juan Bosco president of AFAMARO, the Rosarito artisans’ association, is expanding to include Benito Juarez, which is the name of Popotla as it runs though the center and north of Rosarito.
A non-profit group is being formed to lead the project. It will consist of four subcommittees, one each for Rosarito north, Rosarito downtown, Popotla Boulevardand the Puerto Nuevo area.
Along the boulevard three murals will be painted, several fountains, old doors, sculptures and more will be installed, as well as plants, pots, banners and more.
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO---The Rotary Club of Cambria, California is co-sponsoring with its Rosarito counterpart a Nov. 14 beach maintenance day --- but its main purpose is to show this area is safe for U.S. visitors.
“Any beach can benefit from a clean-up day, but the ones here are maintained very nicely,” said Bruce Howard, past president of the Cambria club. “Our main goal in bringing Rotary members down is to help correct misperceptions in the U.S.”
Howard, who has a vacation home in Rosarito, said media coverage of the Mexican government’s aggressive crackdown on drug cartels has created the impression among many in the U.S. that the area is unsafe for visitors.
“Those of us who love this area and visit it often know that is not true,” Howard said. “But unfortunately the perception is seen as reality by many and it has badly hurt the economy and many people here.”
“We’re hoping events like this and others we are planning involving club members and their families will help spread a more accurate perception in the U.S.,” Howard said.
“It’s also a great way to strengthen our relationship with clubs in Mexico,” he added. “Many members of California Rotary clubs and their families love this area and have enjoyed visiting here for decades.”
Rosarito Beach Mayor Hugo Torres praised the Cambria club’s effort and expressed his gratitude.
“This is a bad time to be involved with organized crime in Mexico,” said Torres. “But for our millions of visitors the area is as safe or safer than ever. Still, it is difficult to overcome negative perceptions.”
“We are extremely grateful to the Cambria Rotary Club and other U.S. groups who love Rosarito and have stepped forward to help us convey an accurate picture,” Torres added. “We know they are among our best ambassadors in the U.S.”
Participants in the beach maintenance day will meet at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14 on the beach in front of the Rosarito Beach Hotel.
One group will head south, towards Rene’s Campo, while the other group will head north to clean up as much of the beach as possible during the two-hour event, according to Edson Ruiz, the President of the Rotary Club of Rosarito.
Ruiz is asking all youth and service groups, clubs and organizations in the area, including members of Rosarito’s large expatriate community, to participate.
Further information on the event, including lodging discounts, is available by contactingJack George at; jeg925@yahoo.com or, in the U.S., Bruce Howard at; bruce@brucehowardrealtor.com.
Finally Some Good News on Travel in Mexico Speaker's Corner: Drug cartels. Murders. The news is often bad out of Mexico. Peter Ferry journeys beyond the headlines.
10.16.09 | 10:21 AM ET Volkswagen bug in MexicoiStockPhoto Poor old Mexico. Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down! Just when the price of oil plummets, American jobs dry up, and the fear of drug violence cuts tourism in half, along comes swine flu to cut it in half again.
Okay, it’s time for a little good news. In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control lifted its recommendation against travel to Mexico; the swine flu isn’t so bad after all, and it probably didn’t come here from Mexico in the first place.
And now a little bit more good news. Drug violence is not a threat to ordinary tourists like you and me. This is according to the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department and me. Let me give you a little background.
I had driven to, in and around Mexico with impunity and pleasure, but that was years ago. Now I was planning two road trips, one from the border to central Mexico, another from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to Oaxaca and back, and my friends were alarmed.
“What about the drug war?”
“Aren’t you afraid of being kidnapped?”
No. At least I didn’t think so. The dangers of Mexico have always been exaggerated, and I have always taken them with a grain of salt. The drug trade is nothing new, and poor people have been kidnapping rich ones for money in the third world and even in the first world (Italy) for a long time. Besides, I’m not rich.
Still, news reports in the weeks before I left caused my grain of salt to grow smaller. One said that President Felipe Calderon’s assault on the drug cartels had started a “civil war.”
Another called the kidnappings an epidemic. A third compared Mexico to Pakistan and described it as a “failed state.” And an official at an Air Force base in New Mexico advised those in his command who planned to drive into Mexico to do so in broad daylight in caravans with cell phones at the ready.
Hmmm.
I called Sanborns, the American insurance people who have been providing auto insurance for American motorists in Mexico for 60 years, and asked if they advised any special precautions.
“Only to stick to main routes and not to drive at night, but that’s mainly because of animals that wander onto roads.”
“Have you had problems with tourists being held up or hijacked?”
“No. We wouldn’t be insuring them if we did.” (A review of Sanborn’s rates indicates no dramatic increases in recent months or years which would likely have occurred if theft or damage claims had gone up.)
Okay. I’d go, but I’d avoid Ciudad Juarez where the violence is the worst. I’d cross the border on a Sunday morning, the quietest time in any week, and I’d do it at Laredo, where the cartels recently seemed to have called a truce.
What follows are facts, anecdotes and opinions.
Here are the facts:
Mexican highways are excellent and well marked. Most major cities are now connected by well engineered toll roads that have limited access and are patrolled by federal police and Green Angels, motorist-assistant trucks manned by mechanics.
Customs offices are clean and custom officials are professional and efficient. Neither used to be the case.
Gas stations are also vastly improved. Almost all now include a convenience store and some even have food courts.
And the vehicle stock is better than years ago; gone are most of the lopsided buses and one-eyed trucks of the past.
Here are the anecdotes:
David Tramp is an American who has lived in Ensenada, Mexico for three years and sells real estate. He drives his Hummer into California through Tijuana, one of the hotbeds of drug violence, about four times a month. Has he ever had or seen any trouble? “Never.”
Does he have any advice for tourists? “Stay out of high crime areas where there are drugs and prostitutes. Common sense.”
Fiona McNeill is a school teacher in her 60s with very little Spanish who is working in a Waldorf School near San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. She drove there alone in nine days from her home in Bend, Oregon without incident except being short changed in a gas station.
Ramon Morales is a Harley Davidson motorcycle mechanic who came to Mexico with his pregnant wife and three year-old daughter when he was laid off from his job in San Antonio. Despite his Hispanic name, he has red hair and a Texas twang. His wife was reluctant to come. “Now I can’t get her to go home. Hell, I gotta get back and find some work.”
Then are the drug wars a figment of someone’s imagination?
Not at all, but they are not a problem for tourists.” One traveler I talked to compares them to the turf wars of inner city gangs or the internecine cocaine wars of the 1970s and 80s in South Florida made famous in the television show “Miami Vice” and the movie “Scarface.” “People were dying all over the place, and no one stopped going to Florida.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew the same analogy on March 26 while speaking in Monterrey, Mexico.
Then is the press in the United States overreacting?
One observer I spoke with thought it is—at least in part in response to political pressure.
Fanning the flames of the issue are the anti-immigration forces in whose interest it is to stir up fear of Mexico and Mexicans. “I think this is about ‘the fence’ that anti-immigration groups want to build from the Gulf to the Pacific. Almost no one who lives down on the border wants this wall,” he says. Indeed, Texas’s conservative Republican governor, Rick Perry, has opposed the wall, and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano once famously said when she was governor of Arizona, “If you build a 50-foot high wall, somebody will find a 51-foot ladder.”
But alarmist news accounts continue. A headline on an article in the San Antonio Express News in February announced, “Mexican Murders, American Victims,” and led with the statement that “230 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2003. After some alarming claims, the article implicitly admits that two-thirds of those killed were involved in the drug trade or gang activity. Many of the others were in high crime areas. In fact, only three of the 230 deaths have resulted in protests by the U.S. State Department, seeming to support the Mexican government’s contention that “Tourists wishing to visit cathedrals, museums and other cultural centers are not at risk.” Despite the Express News’s claim that its investigation “examined hundreds of records,” it failed to report a single instance of an ordinary tourist on vacation being murdered.
A CNN report on “Anderson Cooper 360” that aired on March 5 from Rosarito Beach in Baja, California warned American students of the dangers of traveling to Mexico for spring break, reporting that 20 murders, including some beheadings, had taken place in the community in the previous year. Only late in the report and then parenthetically was it noted that none of the 20 murder victims was either American or a tourist.
I entered Mexico with considerable trepidation, sticking to toll roads and watching both my clock and rear view mirror. When I departed a month later, I did so at my leisure using secondary roads and leaving even these to explore the villages and countryside. As a motor tourist I did not feel threatened by the drug violence or kidnappings I had read and heard about. And I was able to take advantage of the very favorable exchange rate that has made Mexico once again the best travel bargain available while rediscovering that country’s charm, beauty and friendliness.
Should you go? You’ll have to decide that for yourself. As for me, I’ve already rented an apartment in San Miguel de Allende for a month early next year. I’m going back, and I’m driving.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 8, 2009 Registration Underway For November 7 Rosarito-Puerto Nuevo Half Marathon ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO---Registration is underway for the fifth Rosarito-Puerto Nuevo Half Marathon on Nov. 7, an event that organizers hope will attract 600 participants in various categories. Categories for the event along the Pacific Ocean are men, women 18 to 24; 25 to 29 30 to 34; 35 to 39; 40 to 44; 45 to 49; 50 to 54; 55 to 59 and over 60 years. There also is a wheelchair category. Trophies will be awarded for first, second and third place in each category, including wheelchairs. Cash prizes for the winners are first $400, second $300 and third $ 200. For winners in the wheelchair categories first will be $150, second $100 and third $50. The winning Rosarito residents in men and women’s categories will each receive $200. They must prove at least three years of residence. Commemorative medals will be awarded for the first 150 men and 50 women who finish and shirts given to each participant. Entry fee is $100 pesos or $10 U.S. and registration is available at the Rosarito Convention & Visitors Bureau or the Institutes of Sport in Mexicali, Ensenada and Tijuana. The last day to register will be Friday, Nov. 6 from 3 to 5 p.m. at the race pavilion. More information is available by calling 661-614-1454 in Puerto Nuevo, 661-612-0396 in Rosarito or emailing promoter@rosarito.org From the U.S. people can phone 1-800-962-BAJA. Management of the event is provided the State Association of Athletics of Baja California and the event is endorsed by the Mexican Federation of Athletics. "This event is a tradition in Rosarito and people are excited about another great event with a large of number of participants,” said Gerardo Medina, president of the State Association of Athletics. MEDIA CONTACT: Ron Raposa 619-948-3740 ronraposa@hotmail.com
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