Guadalajara Reporter

Dear Sir,

I am writing in reply to a letter signed by Ruby Diamond and Roberto Fernandez, regarding Chapala City Hall’s refusal to sell a public street in Chula Vista to the 2009 President of Chula Vista’s Neighbourhood Association, Gary Bradley.

It has always been understood that Chula Vista’s water, streets and boulevards are the common property of all the people who own homes in Chula Vista, and that any proposal to sell or dispose of those resources would be put to a vote of the General Assembly. As President of the Association in 2009, Mr. Bradley turned that basic ethical principal on its head. The General Assembly was not informed of Mr. Bradley’s intention to buy the street, nor asked to give its consent. Nevertheless, the Board of Directors, with Mr. Bradley as President, gave City Hall the green light to go ahead with the sale behind the backs of homeowners. Fortunately, Chapala’s City Hall defended the interests of all homeowners in Chula Vista and turned down the offer.

Your correspondents write: “First city hall declines the purchase and then wants to get the land back? Is the apple talking to the orange?” Mr. Bradley had illegally appropriated the street for his private use before he made the offer to buy it. The street in question is a sizeable property, valued at 120,000 U.S. dollars. Mr. Bradley put his own illegal parking structure and padlocked fence on the occupied land, and now refuses to take them down. This is why the municipality is taking legal action.

It should be made clear to readers of the Reporter that Ms. Diamond and Mr. Fernandez were responding to a letter that I emailed or delivered to every homeowner in Chula Vista, and which did not appear in this newspaper. I am perplexed as to why, after reading the letter, they would write, “Ms. Penner, if you have suggestions for a solution, let’s hear them.” In fact, in that letter I did suggest that the General Assembly be required to give its explicit consent to any proposed sale of public lands in Chula Vista, with a 90 percent majority of votes cast. I also urged members to put even tougher rules in place to ensure that Chula Vista’s water stays in Chula Vista.

The only way for Chula Vista to thrive as a community and to protect the interests of all the people who own homes in the fraccionamiento is to have strong bylaws, rules and regulations and, most importantly, the willingness of homeowners to defend those rules when they are ignored, broken or undermined.

Wendy Penner