From the Publisher's Desk
¡Un Gran Exito!
We at the Pacific Pearl would like to congratulate the City of Mazatlán for its superb job in co-ordinating the simultaneous Caribbean Baseball Series and Carnaval 2005 held in our city during the first week of February. It must be admitted that many held their breath wondering if the recently elected and appointed slate of municipal officials could manage the events without creating chaos in the streets. Their fears were unfounded. Both events were a great success. And hats off to our Venados for winning the Caribbean Series!
 
With only five weeks to organize the events, Mayor Higuera, no stranger to management principles, brought back Raul Rico to head the Caribbean Series and Carnaval teams. Rico enlisted the very experienced and deft hands of Rigoberto Lewis to oversee the Carnaval parade floats. Internationally respected local artist, Antonio Lopez Saenz, created the ambiance for both events with his colorful posters of baseball players and Mazatlecos in a fiesta mood. Jorge Gonzalez Neri’s towering papier-maché sculptures of musicians and players (based on Saenz’s designs) which lined the Av. del Mar were a joy to look at and added class to the festivities.
 
The weather, though, was one thing the committees could not control. It stormed all day Saturday wiping out two baseball games, the gala performances of the crowning of the Carnaval Queen and the evening Naval Battle fireworks display. Thinking on their feet, the committees rescheduled the baseball games for an extended Sunday play of four games allowing fans to watch the entire series and closing ceremony before heading back to work on Monday. The fireworks were rescheduled for Monday night and as in years past, drew rave reviews from Mazatlecos and tourists alike.
 
Our congratulations must also be extended to our Chief of Police and Transito officials. The traffic continued to flow with only minor disruptions. The presence of police on every corner and walking the Olas Altas midnight street dances gave us a welcome sense of security.
 
From our perspective as the only English language newspaper, we notice that the Carnaval and Caribbean Series committees advertised their events and schedules in every local daily paper and sundry monthly publications, except ours. In fact, we didn´t even receive the free schedule poster put out by the Secretary of Tourism´s Comité de Difusión para Eventos Especiales in Mazatlán — despite the fact that our editor was a former volunteer member of that committee for a year and a half. We requested the poster to publish on our website which has received over 8 million hits in the last year. That´s a mountain of potential international Carnaval tourists that the events Committees could have reached, but for some unknown reason, have ignored for the 13 years we have been publishing. Do you think they´ll remember us next year?
— in answer to the question what would improve tourism in Mazatlán, two main suggestions stand out — increase direct flights to Mazatlán and advertise more. The third suggestion is to “tone down” timeshare promotions
Michael J. Veselik
Publisher