Tapping excellent political connections, innate business sense, abiding love for his hometown and the proverbial Luck of the Irish, John Francis O’Shea Cuevas seems to have everything going for him to lead Jocotepec to a bright and prosperous future.
As he heads into the third and final year of his term as Jocotepec mayor, O’Shea carved out a space in his agenda this week to talk with the Reporter about the goals and accomplishments that are helping him win the hearts and minds of his constituents.
To start off the cordial and relaxed 60-minute conversation, we asked him to share some details about his personal background, including his decidedly non-Mexican surname.
“My mother was a native of Jocotepec. My father was born in New York, the son of Irish immigrants. He came here as a young man to visit my aunt who was one of the first Americans to live in Jocotepec. While he was here he met my mother. They fell in love and married.”
O’Shea went on to say that his parents bore four daughters and two sons. The elder boy named John Francis is better known to locals as Juan Francisco. Family connections to the Cuevas clan on his mother’s side made him kin to “half of Jocotepec,” he commented wryly. After his father’s death in 1966, his mother shipped off to Los Angeles, California to seek better fortunes, with her offspring in tow. It was during four years of schooling there from age eight to 12 that young John picked up his strong command of English.
After returning to Mexico, his new language skills turned him into a reader of the original Colony Reporter which was distributed at lakeside through book and periodical stores his family owned.
Later on O’Shea studied civil engineering at the University of Guadalajara, but he quit that career path to become an independent businessman when he married and began raising his own family: a daughter and two sons. Drawn by Jocotepec’s deep roots in farming, he ventured in berry-raising 12 years ago in affiliation with Driscoll’s, the international industry leader that spawned the area’s fruit-growing boom.
That decision came on the heels of his first foray into politics. In his initial bid for the mayor’s seat he lost to opponent Juan Palos Vaca, who has since become a good friend and close colleague in his current elective post as state legislator.
After a term on the city council under the Palos administration, O’Shea thought he was done with politics. But after bring nudged into a second time candidacy for the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in 2012, he won the mayor’s race in a landslide victory.
He openly acknowledges the advantages of heading an administration that is in political sync with the state and federal governments elected under PRI banner. Jalisco governor Aristótoles Sandoval has paid multiple visits to Jocotepec and showered the municipality with beneficial funding programs. The mayor’s younger brother, who currently serves as National Commissioner of Social Protection in Health and chief officer of Seguro Popular health care program, is an appointee and close friend of President Enrique Peña Nieto.
With those favorable ties, O’Shea landed a deal to build the Regional Community Hospital on the eastern outskirts of Jocotepec. Due to open before the end of this year, the small but fully equipped medical facility will give thousands of residents in the north and south shore corridors close access to top-notch health care, including surgical procedures, specialized attention for female patients and free service to all persons enrolled in the Seguro Popular.
The project will certainly stand out as a big feather in the mayor’s cap. But he can also boast of other achievements under his watch.
In reinforcing the municipality’s police department under the command of Amador Bahena Pinzón, he has brought the community out of the dark shadows of violent criminal activity that plagued the area in recent years. “The people again feel comfortable getting out and about now that tranquility has returned to Jocotepec,” O’Shea observed.
He is likewise proud that his government is making strides in recovering from the financial ruin inherited from the previous administration, boosting social assistance to the needy and developing new job opportunities for the unemployed. He mentioned the construction of a new day care center in the municipal seat and an artisans’ training center and sales outlet in San Cristóbal Zapotitlán as diverse public works projects that will improve the quality of life and bolster the local economy.
O’Shea obviously relishes the challenges that rest on his shoulders. “I don’t regret taking the job as mayor; I knew what I was getting into. The time has come for a new kind of politician. I hope that when it’s time for me to go, people will elect someone who truly cares for his people and selects a team that is willing to work hard for them.”