President Hipolito Mejia backs the building of sports venues for the 2003 Santo Domingo Pan American Games at the Mirador del Este Park, the city park that is adjacent to the Columbus Lighthouse. In a recent meeting with former President Balaguer, under whose government the park was built, the latter expressed his strong opposition to the use of the park to build the park venues. This opinion has put on hold the start of the construction of the facilities for which a tender was recently held. President Mejia says that he agrees with those who say the facilities with bring new life to the park, but that he would have to meet again with the 94-year old influential statesman to “give satisfaction” to the latter. The former statesman fears that the constructions would harm the park and opposed the construction from the moment the site was chosen by the organizers of the Games. Proponents say that the installations would only take up 4% of the total area of the park. Meanwhile, Wiche García Saleta and Polón Muñoz expressed their opposition to the toppling of trees that has occurred at the Juan Pablo Duarte Olympic Center in order to accommodate more sports installations over the years and now for new Pan Am Games installations. That park was also built during the government of Balaguer. President Mejia also rejected the investment of RD$75 million to build the Monte Plata National Sports Games facilities for next year. He said that more modest facilities will be built for those games.
