Jalisco authorities may have overpaid significantly for a property in Chicago, Illinois purchased in 2009 by then state governor Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, the state comptroller suggested this week.
According to some calculations, the state could be looking at a loss of around two million dollars if it goes ahead and sells its “Casa Jalisco” in the Melrose Park neighborhood of Chicago.
The building cost the state government 47 million pesos ($US3.5 million at the time). The plan was to use it as a focal point to develop trade, cultural and educational links with Illinois and build ties with the 700,000 expatriate Jalisco citizens living in the area.
The Gonzalez administration spent an additional 18.5 million pesos remodeling and refurbishing the building before its opening in 2011.
Despite this large outlay, the property, administered by Jalisco Institute of Foreign Trade (Jaltrade), was markedly underused and the seven-million-peso annual cost of its upkeep became a burden on state finances. According to one source, its main use was hosting parties for trade delegations at a cost of around 15 million pesos a year.
In a bid to cut back on wasteful spending, the current Jalisco state government, led by Governor Aristoteles Sandoval recently announced it would be selling (or renting) Casa Jalisco and moving the operation into more inexpensive lodgings.
Talking to the Milenio newspaper this week, Jalisco State Comptroller Juan Jose Bañuelos Guardado said an audit of Casa Jalisco suggests the price paid by the Gonzalez administration may have been considerably higher than its real market value at that time.
Although Bañuelos did not say how much he believed the property was worth at current prices, estimates in local media have put the figure between $US1.3 and $US1.5 million.