Stealing the Lakeshore, Part Two

A state water representative is scheduled today to be down at the lake surveying the situation. We don't know what, if anything, they can or will do.

Two other government officials were down at the lake late yesterday afternoon when we walked our dogs. They stopped the workers and made them leave. We were down there this morning walking our dogs and there were no workers.

However, there was one man who we believe is a supervisor sitting on the old seawall. He made threats to us and to the La Cristina residents in general.

He was reported to the police.

Since this is the third threat, some of us have decided to discontinue pursuing this apparently lost cause. I will not be walking in the neighborhood at all in the foreseeable future, much less down to what's left of the beach.

To see the first post on this subject, look in the archive for "Stealing the Lakeshore".

Stealing the Lakeshore

About ten days ago someone started building a sea wall down at the only lake access point in La Cristina where we live. One of our neighbors went to the offices of the municipality of Chapala and submitted a formal complaint. An order was made to halt the work last Thursday, the police were dispatched and the work was - supposedly - halted. Except it wasn't.

We saw the work continue over the next few days, including Sunday. A bunch of us quickly organized, took photos, got up a petition and ten of us went to "city hall" this morning and spoke to the 'president' which is like the county commissioner. We sat with him around a conference table. He was very polite. Two of our members, a Mexican woman and an American fluent in Spanish, spoke for the group. The president and his aides seemed interested, especially when a digital video of the work being done on Sunday was shown. They provided a copy of the order to cease work. But we got the impression they wouldn't or couldn't really do anything. We were hoping they would send the police to guard the area for a week while we pursue other avenues. We then checked with the planning department, and they had no record of the project. Then we talked to the ecological dept. They were going to try to stop it.

The folks from the ecological dept. just sent someone out to take a look, but they don't really have jurisdiction. They could stop the cutting of trees or fine them for cutting trees, which the workers have done. Two minutes before he showed up all the workers ran, jumped over a fence into someone's yard and hid. Clearly they were tipped off. The guy from the city did turn away a truckload of rocks while he was here. The truck was followed by some folks in our neighborhood group as it returned to the rock yard. There is no company name on these trucks.

It is federal land. Someone in the group is going to Guadalajara tomorrow to talk to the federal water commission or whatever it's called. We think they are the ones who have jurisdiction.

The police came again and put yellow police tape around the site to stop them. They are still working, going right through the tape.

This afternoon there was a reporter from Mural taking notes and photos.

The photo at the top of this post was taken in March of 2009.

This is what is currently happening.