Addressing the Issues in Baja California

Dear Interested Rosarito Beach Owners and Friends:

We're all painfully aware of our last 90 days of crime events that have occurred in our little City of Rosarito Beach.

All the negative press really is hurting all the local businesses. Today, I attended a meeting with the Guest Speaker, Ron Reposa, the new PR person for Rosarito Beach City Office. He is a gringo guy and has two assistants that are in constant contact with the negative media suppliers and trying to educate them, which is a bit delicate because the "basis of what they are reporting is true, but many times exaggerated". He will be sending out weekly press releases about positive happenings in Rosarito and the progress we're making as a City.

Hugo Torres is scheduled all next week on radio and TV talk shows in San Diego to be proactive and let the public know that he is now in office and the Mayors, Governor and the President of México is on board with aggressive programs and money to get Baja California back on track. Here's his schedule on that: Mr. Hugo Torres, Rosarito Mayor will present at:
Sunday 13 January, Radio Show from Lawyer in Blue Jeans, 860 AM at 8:00 AMFriday 11 January, NBC. Sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 AM Wednesday 16 January OR Friday 18, KUSI - Channel 51 Sometime between 8:00 and 9:30 AM (still waiting for confirmation)
The Police that are on the street now have been polygraphed and their guns have been tested to see if any ballistics match up with the bad guys. The Highway Patrol has been authorized to be more present in number and patrol more, the toll road. The green angels are 24/7 now (used to be only daylight hours).

The Mayor has hired a person by the name of Curi. There are 100 of us that are to call him if we see a Police car stop a Gringo. We report the the Police Car number, the location and time and they will make sure it is a legit traffic stop. I will be getting his cell number tomorrow. If you would like to be part of this effort, let me know and we will get you that number too. This will let the police know they (the City) is watching and along with a pay raise to the Police, they will get this cleaned up.

They have dedicated $200,000 (not sure that's ENOUGH!) to landscape and clean up the "Border Road" . They are posting signs with 800 numbers for an Emergency Crisis number for Gringos to call a special office with any problems. The State has committed to have a English speaking person on every shift in all police stations.

There is a Graffiti task force getting organized.

They're talking to the USA on increased border lanes to ease the border waits.

All these things will really impact the local businesses, real estate market, values and sales.

Over the weekend AOL and Yahoo put out a bad article on Rosarito Beach...you probably saw it.

The Board of Tourism has requested that I be one of two Local Realtors to be on their Tourism Real Estate Task Force and I have gladly accepted.

All of this being said, I think we're on the right track. We have a Passionate Mayor who is making lots of noise at the State and National levels in both countries. He has hired lots of people in his City Administration whom are young bi-lingual Mexican people as well as Gringo people in the spots he needs, to get this big job done.

This is just a quick update to let you know issues are being addressed.

Happy New Year !

Best of Blessings,

Diane Gibbs
Realty Executives