Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Urbanos are too wide and heavy for San Miguel streets. Replacing them over time with buses a few feet shorter will not resolve congestion and pavement problems. Dolores Hidalgo has buses half the size of our Mercedes behemoths. Narrow buses for narrow streets seems the correct approach. 

Kennedy Poyser

Dear Editor,

Regarding the bus situation in San Miguel, I want to point out that while there is a lot of talk about the size, the noise, and the pollution, there isn’t enough about the sheer number of buses on the streets. Many are almost empty and very few are more than half full. It seems the bus companies could operate much more efficiently, with fewer buses and a higher occupancy rate. Less noise, less pollution, less traffic, everyone wins. The bus companies have the same number of riders and the riders only have the simple task of timing their trips. It seems a small price to pay for this beautiful town.

Mark Bohné



Dear Editor,

After reading the front page article in the May 11 issue of Atención concerning urbanos, I have to take issue with my good friend Jesús Ibarra.

Jesús, you have it all wrong! There is absolutely nothing wrong with the size of the city buses now in use on the streets of San Miguel. Calling for smaller busses is guaranteed not to help and certainly is going to exacerbate problems by creating the need for more of them and therefore more traffic.

As someone who rides city buses a thousand time a year, when you do it several times a day it adds up. I am in a position to observe conditions first hand.

The bus drivers of San Miguel are quite skilled in their profession and are able to maneuver their large vehicles where I would never attempt to do so. In two decades I have never seen a San Miguel bus driver drive dangerously (a statement not applicable in Querétaro). A couple of times I have seen drivers who were rude; many more times I have seen them deal with rudeness on the part of passengers. Too many times I have heard drivers play loud music on their bus, but by far and away the biggest problem is carelessness on the part of the drivers of private automobiles.

Hundreds and hundreds of times I have witnessed city buses blocked by illegally parked cars. The buses are able to pass the streets without problems until someone double-parks or parks too close to an intersection. People need to realize the city has carefully marked no parking zones to allow buses to pass. When someone parks within 10 meters of a corner, the bus cannot negotiate the turn.

I suspect that some of the individuals calling for smaller buses in the city are not the people using them but might be the same people who arrogantly double-park in front of Blockbuster, Espinos or Bonanza while they shop.

The answer to the bus problem in San Miguel is not smaller buses, especially because these shorter busses are still about as wide as the existing models. The answer lies in vigorous enforcement of parking regulations. My suggestion to the authorities is to consider the following.

First, have the tow truck standing by so that illegally parked autos can be towed within five minutes of the time they start blocking traffic. An even better approach would be to have the grua cruising the streets. This would not have to be practiced for long as the sight of a grua will scare away the scofflaws as surely as a cat keeps pigeons off the patio furniture.

Second, for repeat offenders double the fine for every subsequent infraction. I have friends who joke about how many times they have lost their license plate. They will stop laughing when their fine doubles to 2,000 then 4,000 pesos. Long before it doubles up to 20,000 pesos or 40,000 you can be sure they will stop their illegal parking. Then the bus I am riding on will be able to circulate freely.

Charles Miller



Dear Editor,

Ecologia & Dogs
Last Thursday my housekeeper, when walking my dogs, passed the Ecología truck, lying in wait (by their own admission) to see if they couldn’t catch any stray dog who happened by—I might add that there are very, very few stray dogs who appear here—(do these people have a quota to fill, which has them looking for any unfortunate animal who is out for his morning walk ?). Anyway, Isela was so upset by this occurrence, especially since one of the three dogs in the truck was a “beautiful yellow dog,” I agreed to go with her to the pound to investigate the matter on Monday (i.e. four days later since the place is closed at the weekend!)

Now, it’s no easy matter to visit the pound and see if a given dog may or may not be there. First of all, the place is kept locked at all times. Nobody knows where it is. After a lot of digging around, one finds that it is in an unmarked location beside the abbatoir—no sign of any kind to give even a hint of what lies behind the wire enclosure and locked gate.

Having called Ecología headquarters (tel. 120-4339) we were told we could be met there at a given time (1pm). After a 30-minute wait, three men appeared in a truck. The conditions were, to put it mildly, horrific. There were seven or eight dogs lying around in a pile of dried feces, with no water or food. These dogs had been there since Thursday or Friday. Most of them were half-dead—just laying there, too weak or depressed to even lift their heads. There were half a dozen puppies staggering around, with their ribs showing. 

When I asked one of the men—a big burly guy—why the place was so filthy and why there was no food or water, he said these dogs are dangerous “muy bravos” so we can’t go in there to clean or feed them!

Granted, there was one medium-sized dog who was barking a lot and who was possibly not too friendly—but in that case, why was he not isolated in the adjoining, empty, area?

I have lived here for 14 years, and it is very disheartening to see so little progress in the way animals are treated, or rather, mistreated. We now have an administrator in Ecología who has let it be known that he is more interested in trees than animals. Whilst I love trees as much as anyone, I do feel very strongly that animal welfare should have priority over the creation of a park 

Furthermore, Eclogía should have a daily announcement on the local radio telling people exactly where to go to find their pets which have been picked up, and giving the hours at which they can find the place open. Apparently now if someone, by acting as their own sleuth, happens to find this hidden away location and actually locates his or her dog, they then have to take themselves to the outskirts of the town, up to the government offices on the way to Querétaro and pay a fine before they can reclaim their animal. It should not involve a level of intelligence on a par with brain surgery to arrange for the owners of snatched dogs to be able to pay the damn fine on the spot!!!

There are so few people in this community who really do care about their pets, it would seem to make sense to at least make it relatively easy for them to reclaim them without having to devote a day to the process.

Incidentally, we did ascertain that, thankfully, the “beautiful yellow dog” which had been picked up, had in fact been reclaimed by its owner the following day. Obviously he had access to information which is not available to the average man (or woman) in the street.

Anne Rusling



Dear Editor,

I feel that Joseph Dispenza’s article on the “gimme” spirituality of The Secret was the most intelligent, thoughtful, wise and generous I have ever read. I have printed it out and intend to send it to all my friends and family.

Ricky Harris



Dear Editor,

In an otherwise generous homage to the Vietnam Memorial Wall, Lou Christine omits the name of the artist who designed the wall, Maya Lin. This Chinese-American at the age of 21 created one of the world’s most moving monuments, the dark marble undulating in the open air, an emotional tour de force, honoring and remembering a tragic national experience. Perhaps it is a tribute to the iconic acceptance the piece has enjoyed that it takes its place among such universally acclaimed symbolic structures as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and The Lincoln Memorial. Maya Lin says of the inspiration for the Vietnam Wall:

“It was while I was at the site that I designed it. I just sort of visualized it. It just popped into my head. Some people were playing Frisbee. It was a beautiful park. I didn’t want to destroy a living park. You use the landscape. You don’t fight with it. You absorb the landscape...When I looked at the site I just knew I wanted something horizontal that took you in, that made you feel safe within the park, yet at the same time reminding you of the dead. So I just imagined opening up the earth....”

Bill Pearlman





Dear Editor,

I am Silvia Bernardini, owner of the restaurant L’Invito, inside the Instituto Allende, and I would like to tell you something that just happened to me, to make sure it does not have to happen to you.

These are the facts:

On May 16 I was in the restaurant at 12 o’clock, and the restaurant was still closed. The cleaning person was upstairs in the kitchen and I was in the bar. A couple came in: him fat, about 1.60 meters, dark hair, and she with long frizzy hair and a big pair of golden glasses. He had a strange South American accent, not Argentinian nor Uruguayan. He starts asking me about the menu and specifically about some wines that I keep in a cave on one side of the bar; my purse was on one of the stools of the bar. While I was showing the wines to the man, she was stealing my wallet from my bag, with credit cards and everything else.

They left the restaurant saying they would come back in one hour and they went to Office Depot to buy a laptop, then they went on shopping in Costco in Querétaro.

The only reason I found out is because Banamex called me asking if it was true I was making all these big charges in only one day.

Here is when I realized my accounts were at zero! I went to Office Depot where the manager showed me a voucher and the photocopy of a fake passport from Ecuador with my name. I asked if he had checked the signature on the card and he answered it was not readable, which is not the truth.

I wonder what security we have if someone steals our credit card: the manager of such a prestigious firm is not even able to recognize the fake signature on a voucher!

The police officer who took my declaration in the Ministerio Publico told me it is the first time they have had this kind of robbery in San Miguel.

The reason I want to share this fact is because it could happen to anybody.

So watch out where you leave your purse, and if a couple gets close to you to chat, make sure you take care of your things not trusting anybody.

These people are professionals: they left my restaurant and in half an hour they were signing a voucher in Office Depot showing a fake passport in my name and had a totally different look, with fake hair and a different face.

San Miguel is changing!

Silvia Bernardini