Costa Rica News

Friday, December 21, 2007

Jaco Municipality To Spend $6.6 Million In 2008

By Leland Baxter-Neal

The municipality of Garabito, which includes the towns of Herradura, Jacó and Playa Hermosa, is to spend $6.6 million dollars next year according to its 2008 budget.

That budget has been partially approved by the Contraloría General de la República (Comptroller General’s Office), pending a technical study to justify new municipal staff positions being created.

Included in that spending is the creation of a 25-strong municipal police force, into which the municipal government is investing $800,000; city beautification projects for Jacó; the construction of a city park and amphitheater and four playgrounds; $250,000 in reparations and works on area schools; and two low-income housing projects that would build homes for between 650 and 750 families.

“Next year is they year in which we will begin our most important projects,” mayor Marvin Elizondo said.

With nearly every road in Jacó now paved, including beach entries, Mr Elizondo added that he hopes to have most of the roads in the canton of Garabito paved by the end of next year.

Mr Elizondo and the current municipal council took office in February. In the 10 months since, the municipality has invested more than $2 million in road works projects covering 175 kilometers (108 miles).

In addition, the municipality has already contracted the paving of four more roads, including the streets Ricos y Famosos and Copey in Jacó, and roads in Herradura and in Queabrada Ganado, for a total of $850,000, which will come out of the 2007 budgetary funds.

“I’m very happy with these contracts,” Mr Elizondo said. “Imagine if that money had been left over?”

Mr Elizondo inherited a budgetary surplus from the former administration of Luis Fernando Villalobos of $3.5 million.
© Leland Baxter-Neal
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TOYS FOR LOTS OF TOTS: Longtime Jaco residents Norma Kahn and her husband Kenneth Kahn were among nearly 20 volunteers that showed up to wrap Christmas gifts for 1000 needy children — yes, 1000 — from the canton of Garabito. Gabriela Arias and Christina Truitt, co-coordinators of Jaco’s Central Pacific Chamber of Commerce, have taken on the tall task of organizing the party, which looks to give Christmas presents to all the needy children in the canton.

The Comptroller, in a report on municipal efficiency released earlier this year, noted that, while spending the second most per citizen in the country, Garabito had the worst execution rate for its budget. The surplus mayor Elizondo inherited accounted for a whopping 61 per cent of the previous year’s budget.

After launching a veritable full court press this year, he has spent from not only his own 2007 budget, but also that surplus. Mr Elizondo however acknowledged that he will likely close out the year with a surplus of his own of $1 million, or slightly more.

Mr Elizondo said he was also able to put some of his excess funds from this year toward the construction of a regional state health clinic, known as an EBAIS (Equipos Básicos de Atención Integral), in the community of Lagunilla. Next year’s budget includes a second EBAIS to attend the nearly 4000 resident that live between Tárcoles and Quebrada Ganado, two small towns north of Jacó.

For Mr Elizondo, however, his pride and joy are the two housing projects to be built next year.

“In 25 years there hasn’t been another social housing project built in Garabito. We have a shortage of nearly 1000 homes,” he said. “This is the most important project because it is giving housing to our working class.”

The Comptroller this week approved the $250,000 purchase of a five-hectare (12-acre) piece of property in the community of Lagunilla, north of Jacó, where the municipality is going to build low income housing for 255 families.

In addition, Mr Elizondo said, the municipality has come to an agreement with a local land owner to exchange a piece of municipal property for a six-hactare (14-acre) lot near Jacó’s high school, on the Costanera coastal highway, where another housing project of 400 to 500 houses is to be built next year.

Mr Elizondo ranked the creation of the municipal police and a new town park as the second and third most important projects.

That park is to be located between the Beatle Bar and the Monkey Bar on Jacó’s main drag, Avenida Pastor Díaz, and will include a $70,000-amphitheater, included in the 2008 budget.

The budget also includes $150,000 for art projects, wider sidewalks and other beautification works along Pastor Díaz.

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