Plan for Cityhood Goes Before Voters in Rosarito : Baja California: Passage of referendum would give beachfront community 27 miles of coastline that now belong to Tijuana.

This tourist colony where coastal luxury abuts dirt-road poverty could move Sunday toward becoming the fifth city in Baja California.

A nine-year campaign by business leaders will culminate in a referendum to decide whether Rosarito Beach will secede from Tijuana and form its own municipality.

Newspaper polls and storefront campaign signs indicate wide support for the cityhood movement. Rosarito Beach has traditionally felt neglected by Tijuana’s municipal government, which must contend with the challenges generated by the border economy and an ever-growing migrant population.

Residents say public services would improve if City Hall was nearby rather than 25 miles away, said Hugo Torres Chavert, owner of the historic Rosarito Beach Hotel and a driving force behind the initiative.

“We will have our own mayor,” Torres said. “Citizens will not have to go to Tijuana as they do now. The mayor will do more to promote Rosarito’s development. We can be self-sufficient.”

After years of resistance by previous state administrations, the cityhood movement has the blessing of Baja Gov. Ernesto Ruffo, who became Mexico’s first opposition governor in 1989. He authorized the referendum, the first in Baja history.

Ruffo said at a press conference this week that Rosarito’s ambitions fit into his emphasis on decentralization and increased voter participation.

“Very big cities tend to be distant from their citizens,” Ruffo said. “If communities with territory, population and citizens--and I emphasize active citizens rather than simply passive residents--are interested in developing into a city, that’s positive.”

But the referendum represents only one step on a road with several remaining obstacles.

A majority vote of Rosarito’s 15,000 registered voters is required. Leaders of the pro-cityhood committee worry less about how people will vote and more about how many will show up at the polls. They are using sound trucks and leaflets to encourage voter turnout.

Moreover, the Baja legislature and Tijuana City Council must approve any final plan. The estimated 90,000 residents of Rosarito Beach account for only a small part of Tijuana’s population of nearly 2 million, but the proposed city’s 175 square miles encompass 25% of Tijuana’s sprawling territory.

Cityhood would give Rosarito 27 miles of coastline that now belongs to Tijuana, leaving Tijuana with a 6-mile section of beach just south of the border. Some Tijuana leaders are reluctant to lose a prime beachfront tourist attraction and undeveloped inland areas as well.

“Cutting part of the territory will cut Tijuana’s income,” said Miguel Ravelo of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce.

Rosarito brings in more than $1 million in yearly revenues, according to a study by the pro-cityhood committee. Torres said his group would negotiate boundaries if necessary.

Some critics say the referendum is a good idea that comes at a bad time.

Rosarito Beach has suffered from a decline in tourism since 1989, a 10% drop last year alone, Torres said. The cause is no mystery: the deepening recession in the United States has hurt the middle-class Southern Californians whose dollars are the beach colony’s main sustenance, Torres said.

And the place had a somewhat forlorn aspect this week. Mud puddles from recent rains covered sidewalks. Dust hung in the air in front of half-built skeletons of coastal resorts. A strolling tourist couple in college sweat shirts were followed by the stares of clerks in empty shops and barefoot Mixtec Indian women hawking crucifixes knit from black thread.

“People are for the referendum because they don’t see Rosarito getting any better,” said Susana Vega, a waitress in a coffee shop.

But the considerable effort and expenditure involved in creating a city would worsen the pain, according to Isabel Ibarbol, local head of the National Political Action party, or PAN.

“That’s where you’ll have your problems; the expense on police, bureaucracy,” Ibarbol said. We will suffer for 20 or 30 years. . . . I don’t oppose progress, but this is not a good time.”

Ibarbol is one of several leaders, including those at the community’s two ejidos, or communal farms, who are leery about the proposal. They describe it as a blatant and self-serving political venture by a group of wealthy hotel owners, most of them aligned with the nationally dominant Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI.

“Their interest is political benefit for themselves,” Ibarbol said. “They believe that people will support them, and they are already thinking about candidates for mayor and for City Council.”

Torres, on the other hand, said the initiative has brought together PRI and PAN supporters who agree that local control could help improve urban planning, diversify the economy and provide services to a population that is growing by a rate of about 12% a year.

As to whether economic hard times could be an impediment, Torres said: “Nobody denies that there is a crisis. But that’s not a reason for not going forward. If that were true, Mazatlan, Cancun and all the other tourist cities would have to dissolve because they are suffering, too. We have been working on this for nine years. It is now or never.”

Both political parties are already maneuvering and politicking in expectation of a battle for control of Rosarito Beach, which would become a sought-after prize in a state political climate energized by the competitiveness of the PAN.

In addition to the governorship, the PAN holds two city halls, Tijuana’s and Ensenada’s. The PRI has Mexicali and Tecate.

Political Split Residents of Rosarito Beach, the Tijuana colony where coastal luxury abuts dirt-road poverty, will vote Sunday on a move toward becoming Baja California’s fifth city.