Escazú bridge among those
closed for safety reasons


The municipality has closed a bridge in Escazú to motor vehicle and heavy rains have damaged bridges in La Fortuna de San Carlos, Nandayure and Hojancha.

The Escazú bridge is in San Rafael, said the Municipalidad de Escazú. It is a bridge over the Río Convento located on a secondary street called Calle Real opposite the Il Pomodoro restaurant, said the municipality in a late afternoon bulletin. Municipal officials said they would have to study the structure to see if it could be repaired or if it would need to be replaced. It is an old structure, they said.

In Hojancha, it is a bailey bridge on Ruta 902 that is damaged. This is the road that connected Hojancha with Caramona. The site is on the Nicoya peninsula. The Consejo Nacional de Vialidad said water had undermined the supports of the bridge. They said they expected to be able to make repairs.

In Nandayure two bridges collapsed leaving communities cut off, officials said. One is a bridge over the  Río Nandayure. Both spans collapsed Monday night.

In La Fortuna a bridge over the Río Burro was undermined and heavily damaged.

Two killed by machete


A man in San Carlos took a machete to his wife and mother-in-law, killed them both and then tried to commit suicide, said the Judicial Investigating Organization.

The agency said that the crime happened about 3:50 p.m. Tuesday in La Vieja de Florencia de San Carlos some 200 meters north of the local school.

The wife was reported to have been pregnant, said the agency. The suspect was hospitalized in Ciudad Quesada.

Dollar weakens againt colon


U.S. expats are waking up today with the value of the dollar against the colon at its lowest point since January.

The Banco Central said that the average rate to buy colons is 554.38 colons for one dollar. The average price to buy one dollar is 564.39 colons. The value of the dollar to buy colons was at a low of 497.25 at Global Exchange at the airport and a high 563 at Coopeorotina, the Central bank said. The price to buy dollars was highest at 573.65 at the airport and lowest at 560 at Coopealianza R.L

Aug. 20 a dollar could buy 584.27 colons and 591.74 colons were needed to buy each dollar.

Limón dock workers fail
to earn support from public

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Mr. Craig W. Weir, who seems to be a good and sincere man, writes his letter to you supporting the position of the dock workers’ union in Limón, but is obviously immersed in a cloud of ignorance. One cannot say that unions are bad per se, quite the opposite, for they can be an effective counterweight for abusive management in working conditions and salaries in the private sector. But in the public sector, they have often shown themselves to be self-serving leeches, particularly the heads of the unions, sucking on the blood of the welfare of the public good, and there is no better example than this union.

Through the port of Limón comes and goes the vast majority of Costa Rica’s exports and imports, and because the port operations are controlled by this union, the port of Limón has the highest rate of inefficiency and cost of any port in the Caribbean region.

No other previous administration has been willing to tackle the problem of this gross inefficiency and union power because they were collaborators in allowing it to happen, but the Arias administration has said enough is enough. The country is being hurt badly, and wants to modernize the port by giving out the operations in concession to a private concern in an open and competitive bid process, plus making huge investments in improving the port facilities, and deepening that channel to take those large container ships that are being used in today’s shipping.

The government is willing to pay rather handsomely the union workers to not obstruct this needed change, and to go along with the concession plan, but the union leaders say, NO; they have their rights and privileges and they can’t be taken away. In fact, the leaders won’t even let their members vote on the government’s compensation offer, in spite of the Labor Ministry ordering the union to have such a vote.

The leaders argue that the union is outside the labor laws because it has the benefit of a “convención colectiva,” which is an agreement between board of directors of the port authority and the union. All government unions have a “convención collectiva” and all are filled with special privileges that private unions are unable to get because private companies cannot afford to be so generous.

So before Mr. Weir waves the flag in favor of all unions, he should check out which unions deserve to have their flag waved. Some clearly don’t. The dock workers union in Limón is one of them.