REPORT from Alberto Székely to the
Association for the Protection of the Future of Sayulita, A. C.

During the last Assembly of the Association, on 3 December 2004, I was given the mandate to proceed in the case of Rodney Ingram and his illegal 6-floor tower in Sayulita.

Prior to that meeting and anticipating that decision, I had felt it necessary to initiate certain preparatory actions and demarches before the authorities, both in preparation of the case as well as in order to deal with Ingram's continuing construction activity as soon as possible. I pressed on with those actions and demarches during December and, at the end of January, I was able to bring the head of the Federal Environmental Prosecutor Office in Nayarit to the site.

By that time, I had in my hands legal evidence that construction of the 6th floor of the tower was continuing in overt defiance of the law and of previous governmental rulings. It was of the utmost importance to, first, halt the construction in order to have time to prepare the case and submit the necessary legal action against Ingram and then, if possible, force the start of the demolition. By now, both things have been accomplished. However, as has been the case in the past, after just a short while Ingram is likely to do everything necessary that will allow him to just go back doing illegal things as usual. That is why it was absolutely essential to move on with formalized legal action in order to secure enduring effects.

During the month of February, intensive legal research led to the preparation of a "Popular Complaint", to bring legal action against Ingram for his many violations of the law, and against those authorities that have tolerated them over the years.

I submitted the Popular Complaint to the Federal Environmental Prosecutor in Mexico City on 7 March 2005. Attached you will find the 44 page document containing it.

In the said document, the Association is denouncing that Ingram built Villas Amor without first obtaining any of the many permits that were mandatory by law. Moreover, during the course of the legal research leading to the preparation of the Popular Complaint, I found that Ingram, after having built most of the Villas Amor project in Sayulita, tried to deceive the authorities by asking for an environmental impact authorization for that project (the most important permit that was needed, but that had to be obtained previous to starting it), but pretending that it would be built in another empty lot many miles away. Ingram also started his other project, without environmental impact authorization or any other permit, in the lot adjacent to Villas Amor. As a result of legal action that I took 4 years ago against him, representing then an environmental organization, he was forced to apply for and obtain an environmental impact authorization for the project in that lot. However, in order to get it he submitted a project that he did not have any intention to undertake. Instead, he illegally completed construction of the 6-floor tower in that site, by illegally eliminating the hill where that building stands, and illegally appropriating the federal zone adjacent to both lots. In the process, he has contravened many laws and official injunctions, and performed actions that are typified as crimes under the Federal Criminal Code.

In the Popular Complaint, we accuse him and give documented evidence of his having violated at least 43 legal provisions, some of them repeatedly, that are in force as part of the Constitution and of 6 different Congressional Acts and Presidential Regulations, as well as of having contravened, disdained or disobeyed various Administrative Resolutions and Orders issued by the environmental authorities for the illegal projects in both lots during the last 5 years. We also ask the Federal Environmental Prosecutor to initiate criminal action against him for the reiterated illegal removal of closure seals, for the disobedience and violation of official injunctions, for the illegal use and appropriation of national property in the Federal Zone, for marine pollution and for making false representations to an authority, which are all typified as crimes.

In the course of the legal research, we discovered at least 9 instances in which various authorities, for inexplicable and illegal reasons, were negligent in enforcing the law and in applying adequate sanctions to Ingram. We demand in the Popular Complaint for the Federal Environmental Prosecutor to investigate and bring charges against such authorities. We particularly demand the prosecution of a Criminal Prosecutor who illegally left Ingram off the hook, after having violated one of the injunctions through which he was ordered to stop the construction of the tower.

It is important to note that, as I discovered in the course of the research, the tower was the one building for which there was an express official prohibition for Ingram to construct and complete, and that although after that prohibition had been repeatedly contravened, the authorities officially had closed through an injunction the top 3 floors, all of a sudden the demolition we were requesting of those floors was ordered but, strangely and inexplicably, only for the top floor. We are demanding an investigation and punishment of the authority that limited the demolition order to the sixth floor, and the means by which Ingram was able to obtain such limited order (As I explained in a previous communication, although the Urban Development Plan would in general allow for the construction in the beach of buildings with as many as 6 floors, Ingram had been banned from building that tower altogether, independently of the number of levels intended for it).

With the Popular Complaint already in, subsequent legal work will consist of undertaking the necessary demarches to ensure that the Federal Prosecutor Office effectively pursues the demolition of all 3 top floors of the tower, applies all the mandatory sanctions and takes the actions we are demanding against Ingram, as well as against those authorities that will learn, now, that they are not alone in the pursuit of ensuring that the law is complied with and enforced in Sayulita.

I will soon inform of the date of the next trip I need to make to go to Sayulita, to meet with the Mesa Directiva and with any members of the Association, in order to respond to any questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Alberto Székely

9 March 2005