 It’s been a rocky ride for Puerto Rico’s first female governor during her first two years in office. She was greeted with a wave of manufacturing plant closures amidst a grim economic outlook when she took office in January 2001. A tough stand on Vieques seemed to make dealings in Washington even more difficult for the freshman governor and then there was the fall-out, economic and otherwise, from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, not to mention internal instability in her administration, marked by a never-ending stream of changing faces in important posts.
But Sila María Calderón, at the mid-point in her four-year term, exudes confidence and unflinching focus. She is looking a year past the current criticism of the day.
"We’ve turned this ship around," she says, during one of a flurry of year-end interviews she is giving island reporters, referring to the huge commonwealth government. "Just you wait and see. All my projects are set to go this year."
So far Calderón has yet to meet anybody’s expectations — except maybe that of her detractors. When she came into office, she vowed to push for a Navy exit earlier than May 1, 2003 and to win a new federal tax incentive by last summer, so the governor has not met the expectations she set for herself, either.
But today she says she is proud of her economic development initiatives — such as slashing in half capital gains taxes and offering strategic firms investing in Puerto Rico a zero tax rate -- which she says has resulted in recent economic growth that has outpaced that of the United States and Europe. Calderón also claims that a net 60,000 jobs have been created during her first two years in office, and she says she can reach her campaign promise of creating 100,000 jobs during her four-year term.
The administration has done it, according to Calderón, by reinforcing the importance of job creation to all her Cabinet secretaries, even those not normally concerned with economic development, such as the Police superintendent or the Education secretary. "Jobs, jobs, jobs" has been the mantra of the Calderón administration, the governor says, just as "it’s the economy, stupid" was once the mantra of the Clinton administration.
Calderón says she is confident that the local economy will really start to find its groove this year. And her Planning Board president has predicted growth of 2.3 percent in fiscal year 2003.
There are many caveats to what the governor says. About 15 percent of the new jobs have been in government, even though the governor admits the sprawling commonwealth government needs to get smaller. Many of the jobs the administration has created appear low-wage and in some cases temporary, while better paying manufacturing jobs are being created at a slower pace. Job promotions by Fomento, for example, decreased to 1,228 jobs in fiscal year 2002, ending June 30 2002, compared to 2,374 during the prior fiscal year.
Calderón’s contention that her administration’s main focus has been on job creation is also shaken by critics who point to such acts as opposition to the Wal-Mart purchase of Amigo Supermarkets and high-profile disputes with permitted construction projects subsequently paralyzed for non-compliance with commonwealth planning laws.
And there are many things that Calderón does not like to talk about — all that criticism of the day. One of the biggest points of public concern centers on the job switch between Miguel Periera and Victor Rivera, with the former going to head Corrections, while the latter left that post to head up the Police Department.
Periera’s departure from the Police occurred at a time when he was promising widespread changes, such as slashing staffing levels to invest in technology, and setting an ambitious crime-solving rate of 45 percent by now, which is far from being reached. Crime, in general, is also well up.
The Corrections Department, meanwhile, is still struggling under the weight of decades-old litigation over prison conditions, as well as chronic security concerns. Just this week, a helicopter flew into Las Cucharas prison complex in Ponce and made off with five convicted killers. Earlier this year, a prisoner suspected in connection with dozens of rapes and murders escaped from an armored prison van in front of the San Juan Judicial Center where he was being brought, allegedly under heavy security, to attend a hearing in one of those cases.
The governor simply sticks to her contention that it was a "management decision," offering little insight into what made her order the switch of these high profile Cabinet posts, even though public concern over law and order grows with the increase in crime and high-profile escapes.
Puerto Ricans will probably start to see the projects put forth by the Calderón administration begin to come to fruition this year. There are numerous projects planned for urban centers, as well as in poor communities through the governor’s Special Communities program. In that sense, Calderón’s stint as governor has mirrored that of her previous post as San Juan mayor, where the majority of public works projects were completed during the latter half of her administration. And then, of course, there are all those other projects begun under the administration of former Gov. Pedro Rosselló that are still being completed.
If Calderón completes the Urban Train by Election Day as expected, it will be a boon to her administration — even if her opponent is the engineer who broke ground on the project: New Progressive Party President Carlos Pesquera. And the smaller projects she promises, which nevertheless add up to big numbers, will touch an untold number of voters in a very direct way. Unless the NPP leadership gets dramatically reenergized before then, that could be enough to win re-election.
But at the mid-point into her four-year term, Calderón has yet to define her administration or make a distinctive mark as governor. She still strives to be many things to many different people and in doing so has avoided big ideas that marked the administration of her predecessor, Pedro Rosselló, who pledged and delivered, with varying degrees of success, health reform, large scale privatization and a diversification of the commonwealth economy.
Between her attacks on the corruption under the Rosselló administration, and complaints about the fiscal disarray she found upon assuming office, the governor, at times, gives indications that she understands that she has yet to make her mark. But then there is that confidence, like Calderón is saying "there’s plenty of time for that."
John Marino, City Editor of The San Juan Star, writes the weekly Puerto Rico Report column for the Puerto Rico Herald. He can be reached directly at: Marino@coqui.net |
