SAN MIGUEL
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1...
debt to the Ensena-da electric company, since the community stole electricity for years via an illegal connection
to the grid.
While some residents have purchased po-wer generators,
others receive electri-city
from the central generator brought in by the Robertson fa-mily, who owns the development. How-ever, that power is only available during an eight-hour shift, from 4 to 12 p.m., and users are only able to temporarily turn on a small TV, two light bulbs and at the most a small re-frigerator. While so-me younger Ameri-can families complain about spending
ten dollars a day to keep their generator going, other residents, es-pecially the elderly, suffer greatly. Groce-ries cannot be re-frigerated,
and peo-ple's cost of living has skyrocketed.
"Night is when we have the most pro-blems, because it can get pitch black and sometimes I can only use candles.
I've heard of people
who suffered break-ins, and my hus-band's truck was even stolen" said a San Miguel resident. The situation started when personnel from the Federal Electricity
| Commission (CFE) noticed that the whole development was at-tached to one single meter.
The meter had been tampered with, and it was not re-cording the all of the community's power consumption. The electric company dis-connected the elec-tricity in August of 2006. Residents ha-ve pointed out that former development
manager Glenn Ro-bertson, who has now passed away, was responsible
for ma-king the one-meter connection decades ago.
The situation has polarized residents of San Miguel, as in-terviews with many Americans in the settlement revealed. Some are fond of the Robertson family, who owns the deve-lopment, and have expressed support for them. "They've been really good to us, only the mana-gement of their bu-siness hasn't been the best", said one 20-year resident of San Miguel.
Howe-ver, other more unha-ppy
residents deci-ded to form Friends of San Miguel, a homeowners asso- ciation
started in Oc-tober of last year, which now has at least 60 members. There are almost 90 homes in San Miguel, in which around 15 people live full time, while the rest come on weekends or on |
vacations.
According to repre-sentatives
from Fri-ends of San Miguel, the Robertson family
sued the electric company,
but lost a six month trial becau-se the company could prove that the deve-lopment had stolen electricity for deca-des. A settlement with the electric com-pany established
a remaining debt of around $150,000 do-llars, of which about $109,000 is still ow-ed. Many homeow-ners
in San Miguel see no reason why they should pay this debt, because their lease contract speci-fies that the Robert-sons are responsible for supplying power, water and gas to the properties.
CASINO PROJECT.
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The developer, C.M. "Sonny" Ball, claims to have obtained a casino gambling per-mit from the Mexican government.
However, casino gambling
is illegal in Mexico. To obtain a real permit, a Cons-titutional amendment
would have to pass the Mexican legisla-ture, a proposal that already failed last year. Few people
in Mexico believe that an unknown Ameri- can with no Mexico experience
would be able to obtain a
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casino license, given that major players such as Steve Wynn or Hank Rhon cannot procure
one.
Ball's statements to the US press about the casino
permit reflect a serious
lack of knowledge about doing business in Mexico, inappropri-ate for a developer that is supposedly
handling a $900 mi-llion dollar project. In an article, John An-ton, the "Director of Golf", said that no-body could read the casino permit when it arrived. "They sent the license, but it came in Spanish and no one could read it. An attorney had to put it in the computer to decipher it, and as far as he knows, it looks real." This statement indicates that nobody on the team speaks Spanish, including the attorney, and that they are unable to evaluate the authenti-city of Mexican docu-ments, which are se-rious red flags. Anton also admitted in an interview
that he has not visited the site.
Ball said that he was approached
by a Me- |
xican consortium who claimed to own the land and to have con-tacts in the Mexican
government. Individu-als
that claim to be able to "arrange" de-als via insider con-tacts are often not legitimate. Also, there are many serious land disputes in the area south of San Felipe. Since this de-veloper has already admitted that neither he nor his attorney can read Spanish documents, they are unlikely to be capable of evaluating the land title. The title could easily
be fraudulent or in dispute.
The news announce-ment claims that the $900 million
dollar development is sche-duled to break gro-und in October, 2007. This represents bare-ly a two month time period between
the announcement and the commencement of construction. How-ever,
the area south of San Felipe is barren desert with no infrastructure. There is no water, electri-city,
roads, or sew-age in the area. The news
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