Another forum scheduled
to save Puriscal's church


A repeat performance for those who want to save the damaged church in Pursical will take place Thursday at 6 p.m. in the municipal auditorium.

The last session at which participants generally agreed to try to repair the earthquake-damaged structure was in San José.

The Centro de Investigación y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural is spearheading the effort. The Ministerio de Salud has issued a demolition order because the structure is in danger of collapse. However, the ministry will suspend that order if plans are under way to rebuild the church.

The structure has to be rebuilt from the foundations because the two steeples have been shifted at the base and the church floor has been thrust upwards.

The church was built in the 1930s, so it is not particularly historic, but some in Puriscal feel strongly about preservation and have demonstrated outside the chain link fence that keeps the public from the church.

The last forum on the topic was Oct. 18, and several architectural experts spoke.

The centro, the nation's heritage center, has had experience with a number of churches and their reconstruction.


How about expropriation
and its effect on home value?

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I read your article in AM Costa Rica this morning regarding the new Luxury Home Tax, sad but this tax is being introduced in and at a very horrible time for Ticos & foreigners.  It will greatly reduce buying interest from future foreigners or those who might consider being a foreign investor.

As for the imposed tax, it has a double negative for those of us who live in the Tamarindo & Playa Grande area as the continued expropriation issue has been lingering for four years making it virtually impossible to sell your beachfront property here.  How can we be assessed a property value when the government is allowing a “grey” translation of what properties are being expropriated and what is the Las Baulas park boundaries.  Ask 10 different lawyers to put a letter with the law in writing validating that your property is not going to be expropriated and receive 10 different answers, all of which will be filled with lawyer slick-no-clear-answer talk.

So, the big $10M question????   If you have a property that could be subject to expropriation and the threat and talk of this happening has been stated over and over for three to four years and the government will not make a defining ruling, how can anyone is this situation be subject to any value, and if there is no purchasing value of said properties. How can their be a tax? NO ONE WILL BUY THIS PROPERTY, SO HOW CAN IT HAVE ANY TAXING VALUE?

Not to mention we have been promised a few paved roads & basic infrastructure improvements for the past four years. We produce about 75 percent of the revenues for Santa Cruz Muni and receive virtually ZERO in return, now they want to charge us more taxes?  This place is quickly losing it’s lure and attraction and very shortly the Ticos will say where are all the Gringos. Well..Elvis has left the building, and he won’t be coming back!  Greener pastures are ahead for foreign investors who are tired of getting nothing in return but B.S. And aggravation.

There is the talk of a class action protest, No services..No taxes!  WOW, that’s a novel idea!


Variable price structure
can be found everywhere

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I have to wonder if people really think about things before they write.

How is any business in CR doing anything different by charging two or three different prices than say, Disney, or any other theme park that has discounts for the residents of the state? Florida resident rates at Universal, Disney, Busch Gardens, etc, is as much as 60% less than out-of-state or foreigners.

Additionally some theme parks go even further and have “seasonal” passes for residents of the state they are in and non-residents can’t even get the passes.

Student discounts, senior discounts, and the like exist in almost all businesses. Looking at things another way.
$65 is six hours work at Wal-Mart for someone in the U.S. $65 is three to five days or more wages for someone in Costa Rica. $8.50 is approximately one day’s wages for a worker in Costa Rica.

Proportionally is scales.

If you want to pick a fight, pick a fight with the restaurants that have 2 or more different menus with different prices. Tico menu, cheap, Gringo menu, expensive, and Spanish menu for Spanish tourists, medium price. Or the stores that have prices in dollars, but only except colons, or do a double conversion if you pay in dollars.

 
Government can't handle
new luxury tax on homes

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

In response to Gray’s letter that the Luxury home tax appears to be fair and needed.

If you feel that paying these taxes in a third world country like Costa Rica is fair, well you have at it. It is fair to pay when the government does not even help spread the word on the details? Fair to pay more to a government that can not handle the money it has now? If I wanted to pay more I would live in a place like the U.S. where there is some kind of security. Every one of my friends in Costa Rica has been the victim of violent crime in the recent past, 100 percent. In the U.S. nobody I know has been raped, robbed at gunpoint or been victim of a armed violent home invasion in the far gone past.

It is fair to pay a government that can’t fix a bridge but says they care for its people? Yes, there have been bridge collapses in the U.S. but not when they saw it coming a mile away as parts to fix it sit rusting. Fair to pay a government that can't get enough cell phone lines so you wait six months to a year for one? How are they going to fix the slums when they can not fix anything else?

Now for those that jump at the chance to say “if you don’t like it, then leave” well I am way ahead of you. I did, and right next door. No, not the one with the dictator, the one with security. The one where if you call the police they actually show up. The one with paved roads. The place with 20-year tax exceptions on house taxes. The place where you can actually walk in the street and don’t need a 20-foot wall, alarm, razor wire and guard dog around your overtaxed house.

The place with decent hospitals not only for the rich but for all. The place where driver actually give way to an ambulance and you can also safely cross a street. The place where I can use my car every day no matter the plate number and don’t pay over priced yearly taxes on it. Now is it perfect here? No, nothing is. But it is better than living in a place where all the houses look like mini jails and driving to the supermarket can take your life.

I mean no disrespect to Gary or others that feel paying this much is fair, everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, if you think for a minute the Costa Rican government will use these funds for anything more than home improvement and a new car to some minister and other high ranking officials, I can’t help you. My grandmother use to say “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."

If you still feel the hefty car, house and 13 percent tax on everything else is fair, please don’t leave Costa Rica! I like things the way they are here.