The Baja Real Estate Group hosts a Lunch break at the Calafia Hotel & Spa in Rosarito Beach with visitors from Sampson California Realty as part of the Baja Realtor Tour on June 25, 2011. Features Hugo Torres Chabert, former Rosarito Beach Major and owner of the famous Rosarito Beach Hotel as a special guest.
Tag Archives: Rosarito Mayor
Rosarito Church Honors Mayor Torres For Security Gains & Other Improvements
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO—The Rosarito Beach Christian Church on Sunday honored outgoing Mayor Hugo Torres for security gains and other improvements during his three years in office.
Rosarito Church Honors Mayor Torres For Security Gains & Other Improvements
“It is our privilege this morning to honor a man who has provided us with three years of good government,” elder Richard Johnson told the congregation which is composed largely of expatriates.
Johnson added: “We have witnessed public safety and the judicial system be greatly strengthened.”
Torres at the service was presented with a Spanish language Bible by church member Tom Ward, as well as a donation to the Rosarito Boys and Girls.
Torres told the congregation that he had visited every Rosarito school twice during his time in office. Education and programs such as the Boys & Girls Club are vital to building a strong city, Torres said.
The outgoing Mayor also cited the role of religion in improving a community by strengthening values and thanked church members for their contributions to the city.
Under Torres’ leadership, more than 60 percent of city police were replaced even as the force was expanded. Crime declined 21 percent in 2009 and is down an additional 14 percent this year, to the lowest level ever recorded.
He told church members of the difficulties in accomplishing this and gave much of the credit to Director of Public Safety Jorge Montero, an army captain on leave. Montero survived an early assassination attempt to go on to direct reform efforts.
Torres said he also received personal death threats as the city cracked down hard and made it clear it was committed to eliminating corruption and organized crime.
“This is the way it should continue,” Torres said. “We have not finished the work.”
MEDIA CONTACT:
Ron Raposa
(619)948-3740
ronraposa@hotmail.com
—
Browse for Real Estate in Rosarito and Real Estate in Mexico.
Lobster & Art Festivals Highlight This Weekend in Rosarito Beach
Lobster & Art Festivals Highlight This Weekend in Rosarito Beach
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA , MEXICO—This Sunday (October 17), from noon to 7 pm the XVIII edition of the Lobster Festival will be held in Puerto Nuevo, the famous lobster village 12 miles south of downtown Rosarito on the Free Road .
A large art festival will take place the same weekend in downtown Rosarito.
The lobster festival will take place on the Puerto Nuevo’s main Rentería Street and will feature the restaurants Puerto Nuevo II, The Lobster House, Villa Ortega’s, Restaurant Playa Delfines, Ortega’s Original and Sandra’s.
The Rosarito and Puerto Nuevo restaurant associations plus its Convention & Visitors Bureau are sponsoring the event which marks the start of fresh lobster season in one of the city’s main tourist destinations.
The lobster fest will cost $ 260 pesos or $20 and includes a lobster dish with rice, beans and flour tortillas, plus three drinks per person. Live music and a raffle also will be featured.
Puerto Nuevo, which was a small fishing village in the 1940s, has grown to one of the world’s most famous destinations for lobster lovers, with more than 30 restaurants and a million of the tasty crustaceans served yearly.
Puerto Nuevo-style lobster is widely served in Mexico and California .
“It is important for restaurateurs in Puerto Nuevo to participate in this event that has become a tradition,” said Rosa Maria Plascencia, who is part of the Festival Organizing Committee and belongs to one of the founding families of Puerto Nuevo.
Also featured at the event will be LA Cetto and Santo Tomas wineries, Corona Beer, Rosarito florists, regional products (cheese, olives, olive oil), Mexican candy, etc. Live music will be provided by Tijuana ’s The Moonlights and other groups.
Meanwhile, more than 60 artists from this city’s thriving art community and beyond will be featured on Saturday and Sunday (Oct. 16 and 17) at the first Rosarito Art Fest.
The huge free exhibition and sale of paintings, sculpture and other works will be held each day from 11 to 6 on Boulevard Benito Juarez, directly in front of the landmark Rosarito Beach Hotel in the downtown tourist district.
Rosarito in recent years has become home to a thriving colony of artists, many of whom work from Popotla Boulevard studios and show their work at galleries there and elsewhere. A Rosarito Art Association works to promote them and regional culture.
The art festival will highlight established as well as emerging artists. Music and food also will be featured at the festival that organizers plan to make an annual event highlighting the region’s rich art and culture.
Additional details on these events plus some great hotel packages and rates are available on the Convention & Visitors Bureau website: www.rosarito.org
MEDIA CONTACT:
Ron Raposa
619-948-3740
ronraposa@hotmail.com
—–
Browse for Real Estate in Mexico and Real Estate in Rosarito.
Major Binational Mayor’s Summit In Rosarito Seeks to Unite The Californias
Major Binational Mayor’s Summit In Rosarito Seeks to Unite The Californias
SAN DIEGO—A major binational summit for mayors and other leaders from Southern and Baja California on issues ranging from the border crossing to desalination to public safety was announced today at the Mexican Consulate here.
The Fifth Binational Mayors’ Summit will be May 6 and 7 in Rosarito Beach. Universities and business groups from both sides of the border also will be represented to discuss mutual interests and actions.
The summit’s theme is “Uniting the Californias.”
“We live in a region that is closely linked by economy, environment, geography, friends and family,” said Mayor Hugo Torres of host city Rosarito Beach. “It is important that we all work together to achieve maximum benefit from those relationships.”
For the first time, the summit is being expanded to include six Southern California counties as well as the five cities of northern Baja. Southern California Mayors or their representatives from 70 cities are being invited.
May’s expanded summit is co-hosted by the cities of Rosarito Beach and Redondo Beach. The Mexico Business Center/San Diego Chamber of Commerce, Project Smart Border 2010 and Rancho Santiago Community College are among groups assisting. read more »
President Calderon Pledges Incentives For Film Making In Rosarito and Mexico
President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday pledged incentives to attract more international film makers and productions to Rosarito and the rest of Mexico.
President Calderon Pledges Incentives For Film Making In Rosarito and Mexico
Speaking to an audience of about 400 people, Calderon pledged an initial $20 million to strengthen the country’s film industry plus incentives to attract productions here from around the world.
Calderon made his remarks at Baja Studios in Rosarito, which was built for the production of the James Cameron’s Titanic and where portions of other blockbusters including Master & Commander and Pearl Harbor have been filmed.
The president was received for his visit by Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres. Other dignitaries attending included Baja Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan as well as many other government officials. Noted actor Edward James Olmos also was a featured guest.
“Rosarito has become a place of great importance for the film industry, and it is precisely why here we announce this program for the promotion of film production,” Calderon said.
He stressed that the film industry has great importance in the global culture, as well being as being an excellent source for jobs, income and regional promotion.
“Rosarito has shown that it is possible to offer world-class services to the film industry,” Calderon said. “Productions here have brought international fame to the city.” read more »
Mexican, U.S. Officials Meet In Santa Ana For 2nd Mayors of the Californias Summit
Mexican, U.S. Officials Meet In Santa Ana For 2nd Mayors of the Californias Summit
SANTA ANA, CA. Government and law enforcement officials from both sides of the border met at the Santa Ana Police headquarters December 4 for the 2nd Binational Mayors of the Californias Summit.
The goal of the meetings is to increase cooperation between officials from Southern California and Baja, a region that combined represents one of the world’s larger economies as well having many other shared interests.
Among cities represented were Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, Tecate, Santa Ana, Brea, South El Monte, West Covina, La Habra, Redondo Beach and Fullerton at the event co-hosted by Santa Ana groups and Rosarito.
Workshops at the daylong summit included ones on security, infrastructure and the economy. The importance of sharing information and efforts in the closely linked region was stressed.
“The border does not exist when we talk about air quality, when we talk about water quality,” said Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulito in explaining the need for increased cooperation. read more »
U.S. Rotary Club Helps Maintain Beach & Makes Statement on Safety of Rosarito
Villanueva, far left; Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres, center in striped maroon sweater; and Bruce Howard, far right in yellow vest
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO—Seven members of a California Rotary club joined with about 20 local Rotarians and Rosarito residents Saturday in an event to demonstrate this tourist area is perfectly safe for visitors.
The event organized by Rotarians from Cambria, California was officially a beach maintenance session but Bruce Howard, past president of that club, said its main purpose was to help eliminate inaccurate perceptions that have developed in the U.S.
“We want to tell people that Baja is safe,” said Howard, who owns a vacation home in Rosarito. “We’re coming down, we love coming down and we feel safe and welcome and comfortable here.”
Howard said media coverage of the Mexican government’s aggressive crackdown on drug cartels, including some sensationalized stories, has created the impression among some in the U.S. that the area is unsafe for visitors. read more »
Rosarito Event This Saturday Has 2 Purposes: Maintain The Beach & Support The Region
Rosarito Beach - Photo by Javier Carrillo
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO—The Rotary Club of Cambria, California is co-sponsoring with its Rosarito counterpart this Saturday a beach maintenance day — but its main purpose is to show this area is safe for U.S. visitors.
“Any beach can benefit from a clean-up day, but the ones here are maintained very nicely,” said Bruce Howard, past president of the Cambria club. “Our main goal in bringing Rotary members down is to help correct misperceptions in the U.S.”
Participants in the beach maintenance day will meet at 10 a.m. on Saturday on the beach in front of the Rosarito Beach Hotel. Local residents can join the effort just by showing up.
One group will head south, towards Rene’s Campo, while the other group will head north to clean up as much of the beach as possible during the two-hour event, according to Edson Ruiz, the President of the Rotary Club of Rosarito.
Ruiz is asking all youth and service groups, clubs and organizations in the area, including members of Rosarito’s large expatriate community, to participate. read more »
San Diego To Assist Baja California In Training New Tourist Police Force
San Diego To Assist Baja California In Training New Tourist Police Force
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO—The San Diego Police Department will help train members of a new Mexican metropolitan tourist police force that will patrol from Tijuana to Ensenada.
The training agreement was formalized in a letter of intent signed Monday at San Diego City Hall by Mayor Jerry Sanders and mayors of the Baja California cities of Tijuana, Rosarito and Ensenada.
The new force will patrol primarily the 50-mile coastal tourist corridor from the U.S.-Mexico border to Ensenada. Exact size of the force and other details will be developed in the next few weeks prior to the start of training.
The goal is to have the force in operation by early next year. It will be designed primarily to deal with visitors from the U.S., Baja’s traditional main market.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on our working relationship with our friends to the south,” Sanders said, adding that the economies of the two regions are closely tied and both benefit from binational tourism. read more »
S.D., Baja officials working on tourist-friendly police force
By Leslie Berestein
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Police Training
SAN DIEGO – City officials in San Diego and Baja California are drafting a plan for San Diego cops to train a bilingual, tourist-friendly police force that would work south of the border.
The idea, announced Monday at San Diego City Hall, is to create a unit called the Metropolitan Police to patrol the tourist corridor between Tijuana and Ensenada and points farther south. Officers from the police departments of Tijuana, Rosarito Beach and Ensenada, and possibly the state police, would be trained in how to better interact with visitors.
The hope is to create a stronger sense of security for tourists, business visitors and others who travel to the region, officials said, and restore Baja California’s battered tourist economy in the wake of drug violence that has caused many businesses dependent on visitors to close.
“If they come down here and see what is happening, they will change the perception they have,” said Hugo Torres, mayor of Rosarito Beach. The city already has a tourist police unit composed of close to 30 municipal officers.
Unlike the tourist police, the new unit will perform the bulk of its work along Baja’s Highway 1, said Cesar Santiesteban, secretary of public safety for Ensenada. The training with San Diego police would enable the Mexican cops to learn “how American police think, how American police work,” Torres said. read more »
