San Pancho Sano – January 2025

January 9, 2025

Hola amigas, amigos, vecinas, vecinos y residentes de San Pancho, this is a message to update on what’s going on in our town. I hope you’re all well within the range of the possible. Lalo and I wish you a healthy, adventurous, and loving New Year 2025! It rained two nights ago and has been sprinkling all day long. Today and tomorrow more rain is predicted due to a low pressure front that is colliding with a subtropical air current.

Those of you who are in San Pancho right now would have noticed how crowded with parked cars it is along all along both sides of Avenida Tercer Mundo and its downtown side streets, calles Africa, Asia, América Latina, México, Cuba and Argelia and the mid-side streets Chile and Egipto. Full House! Clearly we just passed the end-of-the-year Mexican holidays, Día de los Muertos (Dec. 1&2), Día de la Virgen de Gudalupe (Dec. 12), Día de Navidad (Dec. 24/25), Nuevo Año (Dec. 31/Jan1, 2025), and Día de los Reyes Magos/Three Magic Kings Day (Jan. 6, 2025). The new delegado/mayor Jorge Rodriguez and the Acción Ciudadana (Citizens’ Action) committee were in charge of organizing and raising the funds for food&drinks, hiring bands and entertainers, and decorating the plaza for these events. We congratulate them for jumping right-in and doing an excellent job of making this holidays season very memorable. Kudos!!!

I want to thank all those who contributed to these many community events; they were magical and fun one-of-a-kind events. Let me just mention one anecdote that captures what these entertainments and decorations of the plaza mean to many locals. In a conversation with a well-known ejidataria elder in San Pancho who is a good friend of mine, my age, we were chatting about our aches and pains at our age in the 70’s, and the issue came up of the Christmas celebration co-sponsored by the delegado and acción ciudadana, and suddenly my friend’s face and eyes lit up with joy, she expressed how magical, even now, the plaza is, particularly at night, with the lit Xmas tree, the stage with the princesses and the castle, and all the lights above the plaza. She said, “nunca lo había visto así, lleno de vida, mágico!” ( I had never seen anything like this, so full of life, magical!) Her expression of joy and magic was so evident as she brought that scene to mind! She went on to say that at night she goes to the plaza and sits on a bench just to experience the beauty and the magic, and experience joy. I thought, “Thank you, Thank you, Mil gracias to all those who made this magic and job possible, for all those who have never experienced this magic. Thank you delegado, acción ciudadana, and municipal president for sponsoring this experience. I was so moved to realize the joy one brings to so many by contributing!

And things are happening in San Pancho, the schedules of activities and workshops at Entreamigos and Circo de los Niños have been published. They are posted on the Community Boards in front of the Entreamigos’ playground and on the wall on the side of the “Báscula” or scale which sits in front of the office space fronting the San Pancho Gym between Entreamigos and Circo de los Niños.

The Concejo de Agua de San Pancho (Water Council) just completed a critical project, replacing the 50 year old cement sewer pipe along one 3^rd of calle América Latina. Many residents and businesses contributed, although a small proportion of the population, for a total of $93,750 pesos, and the concejo itself contributed $50,000 pesos, Tierra Tropical also contributed the big machinery, part of the cost covered by the donors. Thank you all and everyone who invested in this infrastructure improvement. There have been complaints about the dust and stones piled up, but that is being taken care of due to the contributions. Mil gracias!

I am attaching to this reporting the minutes from the meeting held on January 3, 2025 of owners and long-time residents of Barrio #1 (Costa Azul and Clavellinas), the delegado/mayor Jorge Rodriguez, and 6 members of the Acción Ciudadana committee. It was a greet and meet opportunity, as well as providing a forum for the delegado’s full team to communicate their current plans for San Pancho. While the meeting was one hour long with a full agenda, it did give the Barrio Uno group a chance to share some of their concerns and needs. In brief, their 3 projects are 1) two police patrols on quatrimotors have been stationed in San Pancho “permanently,” 2) an agreement has been made through the delegado between San Pancho and the St. Luke’s clinic in Sayulita that stations an ambulance in town for any medical emergency. The emergency telephone is: +52 713 119 9593 plus the information below. 3) to reestablish the full boundaries of parque Hermandad (Brothership park), located at the corner of Ave. Tercer Mundo and calle Asia, by removing all the tents that sell all kinds of things along the avenue side and cleaning and refurbishing the park to encourage its use by children and families. One issue brought up by Edén Hernández, the treasurer, is the concept of establishing a fideicomiso (bank trust) for the town to manage and administrate the functions of running a town. She mentioned that the town of Nuevo Nayarit (the old Nuevo Vallarta) is constituted as a fideicomiso. The Barrio Uno issues were: garbage pickup in Clavellinas, construction noise abatement, limiting construction, water supply and water treatment in San Pancho, and working with Oromapas to release a “convocatoria” to elect a new concejo de agua (water council) and to build a new well. A next meeting was scheduled for February. The delegado/mayor Jorge would like to meet with the residents of each of the 11 barrios of the town, so you might inquire whether your barrio has organized.

At a national level, at a news conference on January 1, 2025, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum stated that she had traveled along the coasts of the states of Jalisco and Nayarit after she received 3 complaints from local towns about the privatization of beaches along these 2 states. She reiterated that beaches are public spaces, and the Mexican population must have guaranteed access. Her administration will be working with SEMARNAT and municipalities to identify those properties that block access and take legal action. 

https://www.poresto.net/mexico/2025/1/7/presidenta-de-mexico-pide-revision-sobre-acceso-restringido-a-playas-en-jalisco-y-nayarit.html, and regarding president-elect Trump’s intention to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Sheinbaum told the press while holding a 1607 map that shows the territory of Mexico that includes the current southern third of the US, that she proposes to call the entire area “America mexicana,” and so it goes…

Be well, be safe, stay cool and enjoy the moment. I’ll keep you updated on what I know and hear, and, as always, I welcome corrections, additions, and suggestions. If you want to be taken off these mailings let me know. Saludos, patricia

photo courtesy of Larry Droguett