It is necessary to give the Municipal Public Administration Government routines and with them establish a cadence for change, it raises Miguel Treviño.
The politician who arrived at the Municipal Presidency of San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León Through an independent candidacy and achieved re -election in office, he considers that in the re -election of mayors there are pure advantages, since it allows long breath transformations. In his opinion, it is a misfortune that disappears this possibility.
In an interview on the occasion of the publication of his book, “Against current. Why and how to enter the challenge of rescuing your city,” edited by Aguilar, Which is already in libraries of the country, it emphasizes that municipalities, to the extent that they learn to collect the property tax will have more possibilities of having healthy public finances and with it greater autonomy.
In 279 pages the former mayor of the most prosperous municipality in the country tells the history of its management, challenging inertia.
There are those who affirm that during the period known as transition to democracy in Mexico there was a disenchantment with it. You say in your book “Beyond the policies implemented, what we did was to cement a way of governing that claims the ability of democracy to offer tangible and sustainable results.” What happened to the transition to democracy in Mexico?
We lived it with bittersweet, with experiences where we realized that the fact that there were free and respected elections did not ensure quality governments and in some cases, with alternations that they raised, even if they were marginally, the level of management.
In the case of the San Pedro Garza García municipality, Nuevo León and the experience of these six years, because it goes beyond that. It is a government that incorporated the talent of citizenship and dared to do different things, such as undertaking long -breath urban regeneration projects that for young people, especially, was very revealing the possibilities of a government that truly honors its character that is due to citizens. So it is a case that gives hope.
You say that what happened in San Pedro is a testimony that democracies can be resilient, but for that it is necessary that there are informed, committed and able to accompany and stress the governed citizens. Does that apply only for San Pedro or do you see real possibilities in other places?
Apply to any government. I think it also reflects that the local level is where truly citizens can be undertaken.
But the problems addressed by the book have to do with how to establish a vision and stay faithful to it, how to form a team based on talent and not of political commitments, how to create a culture of work, how to give routines to the government and with that routine establish a cadence for change.
So, it has all the intention of being a useful book for any government in our country and beyond this.
What were the main public problems that I had to solve?
The most important is that we were in a municipality in decline, where the public space was increasingly abandoned, which was becoming an offices district, of people who came from the other end of the metropolis here and returned at night, and therefore the public space was uninhabited.
What was the most complicated when adjusting the bureaucratic machinery to work and then think about the solutions?
There are very strong inertia. There are bureaucratic processes that do longer what should be simple. Budgeting is annual when long breath projects require several years budget.
Sometimes there are no capabilities for projects that have never been done.
It was to give the Government a operation more similar to that of the private sector, with very efficient processes and planning that leads the entire team to the discipline. Established this, the government has already worked in the way we need.
How much have we advanced in the country to design public policies based on evidence, based on knowledge?
Well, unfortunately, there is a culture where the ruler believes that all good ideas occur to him and suddenly because he is isolation, when the team does not have the profile to give the rule and give him the real data, because the government of reality is isolation.
That is why I made explicit in front of my team that we would be a government that made decisions based on data and evidence.
That makes a very big contrast with the federal government, with which I had to coincide. I agreed for six years with the administration of López Obrador and while in the federal, it was what was happening to the president, here in the municipality, because they are projects where there is a vision for which it advances in a sense, but also everything is supported by data and evidence.
Now, what are the advantages and what are the disadvantages of a 6 -year -old government in a municipality?
I see pure advantages, re -election is something that allows you to undertake longest breath transformations in our cities. Without re -election there are little hope that the important changes that our cities need can be given.
Moreover, six years fall short with respect to the needs they need, the needs that cities have to advance for a while in some direction to correct problems that have been accumulating over decades.
Then re -election has pure advantages, it is a shame, it is a misfortune for our country that will be reversing the possibility of the mayor to be reelected.
Now I would like to ask about the health status of independent candidacies. Moreover, I would like to ask you, would you have the same chances of triumphing for the first time as an independent candidate in 2027 as those in 2018?
I don’t know the last. What I can say is that independent candidacies are a figure that has more possibilities to crystallize in an electoral success to the extent that we are in cities of a certain scale.
I am convinced that it is a figure that can be used in small cities.
Are there conditions to institutionally strengthen the municipality?
I believe that municipalities, to the extent that they learn to collect their property, which is an important source of income, will have healthier finances and a higher level of autonomy with respect to state and federal orders.
As a country should we fight to strengthen the municipality?
Yes, the municipality, as the order of government closest to the citizen, is the one that solves many of its most immediate needs and that is why it is important to have laws that give it all the force.
