The three hundred twenty fourth meeting of the Knights of Cortez took place on March 3, 2021 at the New Cabo Bakery located inside the Pioneer Plaza.  The meeting was called to order by Sir Bob at 8:05 AM.  In attendance were 18 members and one guest, along with four members of the Municipal Government.

Thanks to the efforts of Sir Alex Tapia, we were honored with the attendance of several of the high-ranking officials of the Los Cabos Municipal planning and works department.  Included in the group were the Director of Public works, Arch. Rogelio Magaña, the Municipal Síndico lawyer Alejandro Fernandez Briseño and the Director of Human Settlements in the Municipality Eng. Erasmo Castañeda Alvarez; 

They, along with Arch. Rogelio shared with us the projected plans for several of the future projects that our community needs to provide greater diversity and added cultural aspects to our community. These are projected projects that will require broad support from all areas of the community with everyone cooperation and support. They brought with them a Large TV screen and computer that showed computer created videos of these projects.

Four projects in particular were highlighted in the meeting and can, along with other projects on the drawing boards, be viewed in greter detail at the Los Cabo City web site: https://www.Los Cabos.Gob.Mx 

1. A remodeling of the Central plaza at San José by adding an Arcade alongside the buildings E façade.  New landscape design utilizing various locally indigenous species. There currently is no existing landscape. A major change would be the relocation of current gazebo to the center of the area as well as adding a new fountains. 

2. A Marine Museum. This project would use the existing historical building at the N facade of the secondary plaza where Mi Casa Hotel is currently located at the E facade. 

3. Historical regional records building. This would be a facility where all records would be available to public.  They would be digitalize. Also this facility would be used for a career training area for office space for the curators of the data. 

4. A multiuse Theater, seating 700 people as part of the cultural upgrade for Cabo residents. It would require the demolition of the existing poor plan construction that exist in the current Cultural Center site.           

A question regarding water issue was raised a member.   Arch. Rogelio Magaña replied in general as follows.

The City has 12 wells within the potable water system.  Currently, only 6 are functioning and providing usable water.  He advised that he has personally gone to Mexico City in an attempt to acquire funds to repair the 6 unused wells, but to no avail.  It would appear that the Federal Government which controls the OMSTAPA has embarked upon a project creating another Desalination plant first.

Legislators greenlighted a public-private partnership contract for the 3.9bn-peso desalination plant in Los Cabos municipality and the 1.3bn-peso improvement of the water distribution system in Cabo San Lucas city, congress said in a statement on Thursday. 

The plant was estimated to cost US$50mn, but authorities updated the amount to around US$178mn, without providing a reason for the increase. Also, the original proposal did not include the water distribution improvement. 

 Completion of this project is projected to take approximately 2-3 years for completion.  In the meantime, a moratorium on NEW hotel, condominium and apartment planning or approval is in place.  Several large projects have already been approved, waiting for construction to begin.  These will be allowed to be built as they had been approved prior to the moratorium being put into place.

Bottom line?  We will be experiencing much larger water shortages over the next two years as smaller condominium, apartment and new home construction continues to grow rapidly.

Following breakfast services and some small group conversation, the meeting was closed at 10:40 AM.

The next breakfast meeting of the Knights of Cortez will take place on March 10, 2021 at 8:00 AM and once again at the New Cabo Bakery. Please RSVP your intentions when you receive the Evite.  Due to the governments  COVID 19 requirement placed on the restaurant, Please, we can not accept a “maybe” response.