Pronunciamiento ENGLISH: Lomas de Atotonilco is not a “Fait Accompli”

Lomas de Atotonilco is not a “Fait Accompli”

After reading your article regarding the change of law to allow a mega-housing development in Atotonilco, we feel that people with vested interests in the project have disseminated a lot of misinformation, and your article fails to clearly present the three real issues that citizen and authorities must consider:

1)      The future of San Miguel
;
. ¿Is it correct that 10 people with huge conflicts of interest decide that San Miguel should double in size in a few years applying an urban development model based on “Satellite Cities”, without a development plan for the city, and leaving to tax payers and future administrations the huge economic commitment required to build the infrastructure needed by such a development model? It should be notedEnough to say that this ill-conceived development model has been a terrible failure in cities like Mexico City, Monterrey, San Luis Potosí, Ciudad Juarez, Acapulco, etc. People from these cities move to San Miguel looking for a compact and clean city.

2)      Ethics:
¿
Is it ethical for a city government to promote the sale of land set aside as ecological and cultural preserves for the huge benefit of private speculators who do not even live or invest in this city? If, as stated by the Mayor, the objective is to benefit the poor people of San Miguel, ¿Why not grant the change in zoning laws so that poor farmers and “ejidatarios” benefit from the value of their land instead of acting only for the benefit of a private company whose elusive investors never show their face?

3)      Legal: This is really the most important issue, as the rule of law should be taken for granted in a modern democracy. We can illustrate the point with a simple example:  Let us assume that the City Council unanimously approves a change in local laws legalizing murder. Or another example closer to the hearts of our greedy City Officials… they approve a change in local laws to allow them to raid the city treasury and take all the money for their own benefit. Would the approval by the City Council of these changes in legislation effectively legalize homicides and government graft?
¡
The short answer is NO! Article 115 of the Mexican Constitution clearly limits the powers of city officials, as they have to abide by Federal, State and local legislation. A first analysis of the decision made to approve the Lomas de Atotonilco project suggests that the members of the San Miguel City Council ignored or openly broke more than 70 articles or legal dispositions related to Ecology, Urban Development, Housing and Governance.

We are happy and proud
to
inform  that a Citizen’s group has been formed with the goal of “Saving San Miguel”. SOME MEMBERS OF OUR GROUP WITH VARIOUS OTHER CITIZENS  have already started legal actions against the City Council’s decision to grant the change in zoning to allow the mega-housing development. Our main goal is to force the Mayor and City Council Members to follow the rule of law. Other legal actions are being prepared with the help of legal experts, urban planners, housing experts and people who love San Miguel. We are inspired by the Fathers of Mexico’s independence, Ignacio Allende and Miguel Hidalgo, who started their fight under the premise “Down With Bad Government”. We follow their example, but this time we fight the worst city government in the history of San Miguel de Allende peacefully, thanks to the legal options and freedoms granted in modern Mexico. For additional information please follow our web site: http://savingsanmiguel.blogspot.com/

Salvando San Miguel (Saving San Miguel)