Bacalar, Q.R. — Bacalar Mayor José Alfredo Contreras Méndez says the new police headquarters will be ready next month. The new 9-million-peso building will be the new Public Security and Traffic office for the district.
The new facilities, which are being built at kilometer 16 of the Bacalar-Chetumal highway, are expected to become fully operational in sometime in February of 2024.
The new building will include police offices that will be connected to the municipal C2, providing better security.
“These new facilities should be complete in February and for this, a budget of around 8 to 9 million pesos has been allocated.
“As a city council, we agreed to acquire a property to construct the new building that will offer decent spaces for the elements and of course, according to the functions they perform and where the monitoring center will also be.
“With the new facilities, it will be possible to have 24-hour surveillance of the municipality through the cameras that will be installed in strategic points,” he explained.
And he indicated, the property where the police corporation is currently located on the outskirts of the city is a rented property. With the new building, the municipality will be able to save on what was spent to cover the rent.
Contreras Méndez said despite the better facilities and police salaries, it has not been possible to fill the vacant positions to strengthen the workforce due to the little response they had during the recruitment process.
“Unfortunately there has not been a positive result so far. There is very little interest in joining the police force, even though the salaries and benefits we offer are much better than in other parts of the state.
“We understand that many are preferring to work on the Maya Train, which is a project that has not only prevented vacancies from being filled but has also created additional vacancies since many police officers resigned to go to work there,” he said.
Contreras Méndez says he hopes once the train project is finished, recruitment will pickup since at least 200 more officers are required to completely cover the municipality with its 57 communities.
