The three hundred twenty sixth meeting of the Knights of Cortez took place on March 31, 2021.  Chef Roger Martin opened the Casa Martin Restaurant especially for us. It is located inside the El Nido B & B, which is owned by Sir Gary Morton.

The meeting was called to order by Sir Bob Schultz at 8:15 AM.  In attendance were a total of 38 persons,  18 members and 16 guests, 10 of whom, with the assistance of Sandra Berry and Marilyn Plank,  were members of the Ladies Tomatoes Social group. The additional guest consisted of those noted below.

BAJA SUR GOVERNOR CANDIDATE:

PANCHO PELAYO

&

DISTRICT ONE DEPUTY CANDIDATE:

EDA MARIAPALACIOS MARQUEZ

Along with their respective team members consisting of Luis Aragon and Sergio Perez for the Governor Candidate and Gabriella Palacios Marquez, and Arturo Osunam for the District 1 Deputy’s team. The guests for today’s meeting were arranged for by the Coordinators of the Foreign Community in Los Cabo, Nohemi Romero, and Enrique Gonzalez.

We had encouraged each member to bring your spouse, significant other as well as any friends or neighbors who may have an interest in the future of Baja Sur and our community.

Both candidates where introduced by Nohemi Romero who, with the able assistance of Sir Sergio Gonzales, translated the proceedings for the non-Spanish speaking attendees. Each Candidate’s qualifications and past political experience were presented by way of an English language version of their personal political power point presentation.

Following these presentation, both candidates spoke of their visi0on for the future of the Baja Sur and Cabo in general.  It was noted that Cabo is now the leading and most wealth municipality in Mexico and contributes 85% of the total Mexican Federal budget.

Following was a q& A period. Sir Davis Larson spoke of the advancements already taking place in the Baja Sur especially in the areas of online administration. He further mentioned the need to address the major growth taking place especially in the El Tazel area of Cabo. Water, sewer and CFE electrical shortages would appear to be far behind the growth that is taking place.   

Sir Sergio Gonzalez also mentioned that even though the Cabo San Lucas area produced more than 60 % of the Baja Sur revenues sent to Mexico City, the area seems lacking in being provided a full returning share of money for improvements.  He stated that a disproportionate amount of tax money is returned to LA Paz and San Jose, while Cabo trails badly in the mix.

Sir Bob Schultz spoke of the need for the expat community to be heard by the local and state government.  He noted that although many of the expat community may be unable to vote, they do vote by investing a great deal of money into the community.

At the conclusion of his comments, Sir Bob presented honorary membership in the Knights of Cortes  to each candidate anas well as Nohemi Romero and Enrique Gonzalez..  Sir Bob asked that when the candidates where elected, they might not forget us, but visit the members whenever they are in Cabo.  Pancho Pelayo promised the membership that that would in fact be the case.

At the conclusion of the formal meeting of the Knights of Cortes, breakfast was served while several one-on-one conversation took place.  At 10:40 AM, Sir Bob formally called the meeting concluded.

The three hundred twenty fourth meeting of the Knights of Cortez took place on March 3, 2021 at the New Cabo Bakery located inside the Pioneer Plaza.  The meeting was called to order by Sir Bob at 8:05 AM.  In attendance were 18 members and one guest, along with four members of the Municipal Government.

Thanks to the efforts of Sir Alex Tapia, we were honored with the attendance of several of the high-ranking officials of the Los Cabos Municipal planning and works department.  Included in the group were the Director of Public works, Arch. Rogelio Magaña, the Municipal Síndico lawyer Alejandro Fernandez Briseño and the Director of Human Settlements in the Municipality Eng. Erasmo Castañeda Alvarez; 

They, along with Arch. Rogelio shared with us the projected plans for several of the future projects that our community needs to provide greater diversity and added cultural aspects to our community. These are projected projects that will require broad support from all areas of the community with everyone cooperation and support. They brought with them a Large TV screen and computer that showed computer created videos of these projects.

Four projects in particular were highlighted in the meeting and can, along with other projects on the drawing boards, be viewed in greter detail at the Los Cabo City web site: https://www.Los Cabos.Gob.Mx 

1. A remodeling of the Central plaza at San José by adding an Arcade alongside the buildings E façade.  New landscape design utilizing various locally indigenous species. There currently is no existing landscape. A major change would be the relocation of current gazebo to the center of the area as well as adding a new fountains. 

2. A Marine Museum. This project would use the existing historical building at the N facade of the secondary plaza where Mi Casa Hotel is currently located at the E facade. 

3. Historical regional records building. This would be a facility where all records would be available to public.  They would be digitalize. Also this facility would be used for a career training area for office space for the curators of the data. 

4. A multiuse Theater, seating 700 people as part of the cultural upgrade for Cabo residents. It would require the demolition of the existing poor plan construction that exist in the current Cultural Center site.           

A question regarding water issue was raised a member.   Arch. Rogelio Magaña replied in general as follows.

The City has 12 wells within the potable water system.  Currently, only 6 are functioning and providing usable water.  He advised that he has personally gone to Mexico City in an attempt to acquire funds to repair the 6 unused wells, but to no avail.  It would appear that the Federal Government which controls the OMSTAPA has embarked upon a project creating another Desalination plant first.

Legislators greenlighted a public-private partnership contract for the 3.9bn-peso desalination plant in Los Cabos municipality and the 1.3bn-peso improvement of the water distribution system in Cabo San Lucas city, congress said in a statement on Thursday. 

The plant was estimated to cost US$50mn, but authorities updated the amount to around US$178mn, without providing a reason for the increase. Also, the original proposal did not include the water distribution improvement. 

 Completion of this project is projected to take approximately 2-3 years for completion.  In the meantime, a moratorium on NEW hotel, condominium and apartment planning or approval is in place.  Several large projects have already been approved, waiting for construction to begin.  These will be allowed to be built as they had been approved prior to the moratorium being put into place.

Bottom line?  We will be experiencing much larger water shortages over the next two years as smaller condominium, apartment and new home construction continues to grow rapidly.

Following breakfast services and some small group conversation, the meeting was closed at 10:40 AM.

The next breakfast meeting of the Knights of Cortez will take place on March 10, 2021 at 8:00 AM and once again at the New Cabo Bakery. Please RSVP your intentions when you receive the Evite.  Due to the governments  COVID 19 requirement placed on the restaurant, Please, we can not accept a “maybe” response.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

The meeting with the Delegado is at 9:00 a.m. I am suggesting that we arrive by 8:45 am to be ready to start on time.

Peter Straub has agreed to  prepare a special breakfast, after the meeting with the Delegado.   Menu: Scrambled Eggs or Omelettes,  with ham, cheese, mushrooms, etc.,  plus fruit,  pastries, and coffee, at his old Swiss Bakery, located near the Delegación.

I suggest parking in the delegation lot and walking to The Swiss Bakery after the meeting.