By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff

The 81 mayors set to take office Feb. 5 converged on Casa Presidencial in Zapote, southeast of San José, yesterday to meet with President Oscar Arias and most of his Cabinet at the first-ever National and Local Government Coordination Meeting.

Rodrigo Arias, the President’s brother and spokesman, told the assembled authorities that he hopes the encounter, as well as individual meetings between administration officials and each mayor, will become an annual tradition.

“During this administration, you’ll always find an attentive ear” at Casa Presidencial, he said.

Carlos Luis Marín, mayor-elect of Liberia, in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, told The Tico Times the gathering seemed well worth the trip.

“Although we’re local governments, we depend on central institutions,” he said, adding that he hoped to firm up plans with the Labor Ministry to create an employment directory that would connect new businesses arriving in the booming province, where multinational corporations and hotels set up shop each year, to local entrepreneurs who can meet their needs.

During the event, a series of speakers including the ministers of Public Works and Transport, Housing, Tourism, Public Security, Justice, Planning, the Environment and Energy, and Foreign Trade were called on to outline their plans for the next four years, focusing on the areas where local and central authorities will need to coordinate.

The deterioration of municipal roadways was, unsurprisingly, a top priority. Transport Minister Karla González said she plans to work with the new mayors, elected Dec. 3, to maintain 2,700 km of local roads, improve 325 km, build 56 bridges and rebuild 16 this year.

She admitted that while fixing potholes is necessary until more profound improvements can take place, most of the country’s roads are fundamentally flawed and must be rebuilt.

“We’re throwing asphalt into a pothole of waste,” she said. “That’s true.”