City’s Chief of Staff Leaves for the Campaign Trail
(Acapulco, JG 2 December) The Secretary General of the Acapulco City Government, equivalent to a Mayor’s Chief of Staff in the English-speaking world, has requested a leave of absence from his post. Vicente Trujillo Sandoval remained with the city government to help the transition between elected Mayor Manuel Añorve Baños and appointed interim mayor, José Luis Ávila Sánchez. Virtually every citizen knew that being mayor of Acapulco was for Añorve just a stepping-stone in a more ambitious political career, and thus his short term of service came as no surprise. After a year and a half in office he resigned the elected post to be able to run for election to the position soon to be vacated by PRD Governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo. His right hand man, Vicente Trujillo tarried behind, but now has made it official: he is leaving to join his boss on the campaign trail.
In the last two weeks Vicente Trujillo’s vacant land on the hillside above Acapulco’s bay, on the east side, has become controversial; there the press discovered an Illegal deforestation of protected tropical trees. The City of Acapulco had started clearing land so that Trujillo’s property could connect to a public roadway, thus increasing in value several fold. Evidently in an effort to avoid public disclosure of the cozy arrangement, the City chose not to seek the required environmental permits. Then the public noticed the disturbance to the landscape, journalists investigated the causes. Throughout the incident Trujillo said he had nothing to do with the matter, but admitted that his real property was the destination of the connecting right of way.
When asked whether the deforestation incident had any influence on his decision to leave the city government for the Añorve campaign, Trujillo emphatically and credibly said no. Voters not only tolerated it when public officials mix their personal and public interests, they expect it; and in politics such actions serve more to measure a person’s competence, not his character.
