Los Cabos treasurer Jonatan Vargas Agúndez mentioned that he was elated at the amount of money that the city received in tax payments over the first four months of the year. According to his estimates the city currently holds a one billion MXN net profit (around 49 million dollars). The local treasure mentioned that the city already has plans to start spending those profits. Their first course of action will be providing chemical treatments to sewage flowing into local water treatment plants.
This is being done in large part to avoid awful odors that come from the sewage water that arrives at these treatment plants. An issue that primarily affects locals and tourists in the San Jose del Cabo downtown area. The large public water treatment plant is so overrun that authorities have had to deliberately suspend water supply to different neighborhoods in the city for extended periods.
This is being done in an effort to better manage that amount of water that is available. The amount of junk build up that is flowing into, and essentially around these treatment plants is also a major culprit for the awful odors.
Chemicals Set To Be Added To Sewage Water And Local Lagoons
The local water treatment plant was originally run by Fonatur, the federal tourism fund, but it was recently turned over to the municipal government at the request of Mayor Oscar Leggs. This was done in an effort to potentially improve the water supply efficiency in the city. Treseasurer Jonatan Vargas announced that the city is already planning to use chemicals on the sewage water arriving at the local treatment plant along with nearby lagoons where sewage also flows into. Vargas had this to say about the initiative,
“We were given a quote for 5 million mxn ( around 246,000 USD) for the chemicals issue. I’m not an expert on this matter, but with this we will be able to avoid the foul odors. Plus it will give us an opportunity to clean out local lagoons. In doing all of this we will be tackling a long standing issue that has primarily affected the San Jose del Cabo downtown area”
Although the first few months of the year allowed the Los Cabos municipality to stack up on cash from taxes, May is usually a down month for the city. In light of this, Jonatan Vargas did not hesitate to urge people to catch up on their taxes this May. At the same time he revealed that people have been buying up properties in Los Cabos at an unprecedented rate. This is one of the main reasons why the city’s overall balance sheet looks so positive. He’s still waiting on the exact numbers, but Los Cabos finances seem to be very healthy. Vargas went on to say,
“There’s a tax surplus of 15 or 18%. In the coming days we’ll get to close the books, and get the exact amount. This signals a great response by the citizens, we understand that we are in a time of post pandemic recovery as many of us like to call it. In spite of this, there’s a real estate boom that is helping us out. The ISAI (tax on newly purchased properties) really took off in the late months of 2021.”
Los Cabos Mayor Oscar Leggs recently mentioned that the water supply issue was a priority for his administration. Cleaning up sewage plants, and nearby lagoons can be a good start to the full renovation project that is set to take place at the water treatment facility that was formerly held by Fonatur.