Tuesday, June 13, some 30 residents from the Poncitlan villages of Agua Caliente, San Pedro Itzicán, Santa María, Chalpicote and la Zapotera demonstrated outside the Governor’s offices in Guadalajara, demanding a new artesian well be drilled so they could stop using contaminated water, which is being blamed for a host of diseases plaguing their communities. 

If all the laws currently on the books in Mexico were effectively enforced, the nation would resemble something akin to a utopia. But too often, the enforcement capacity of federal, state and municipal governments is ham-strung by powerful forces, often of an economic and/or cultural nature.  

If you’re involved in a car accident while using your cell phone, you could end up serving jail time. Sentences could be between 3-10 years if the accident resulted in death or serious injury.  

Introduced in Jalisco last year, Mexico’s new justice system, modeled on the United States and other western nations, was supposed to bring a breath of fresh air to an outdated – and often corrupt – judicial process, offering increased transparency and more legal guarantees for defendants.

The metro-area municipality of Tlajomulco has launched a new garbage collection program, putting down an environmental marker ahead of wealthier neighbors Guadalajara and Zapopan, both of which still dump all kinds of waste into the same trucks.

More airport woes

Farmers seeking compensation for the decades-old expropriation of their lands to build the Guadalajara International Airport will picket the facility as of Monday, June 12.  Talks with federal authorities over fair compensation broke down again this week, with representatives of the  Zapote farmers’ community (ejido) promising to reestablish the non-violent protests that have plagued the city airport over the past 18 months.