SILA MARíA CALDERóN

'Sila María Calderón Serra' (born September 23, 1942) was the seventh Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico from 2001 to 2005. She is the first and to date only woman ever elected to that office. Prior to being Governor, Calderón held various positions in the Government of Puerto Rico, including Secretary of State and Chief of Staff. She was also Mayor of San Juan, the Capital of Puerto Rico.

Contents

Early life and education

Political career

Mayor of San Juan

Governor

See also

References

External links

Early life and education

Sila María grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico into an upper class family (her father was a successful ice cream industrialist and real estate developer) and attended high school at the Sacred Heart Academy in Santurce. In 1960 she attended Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. In 1964 she graduated with a degree in Political Science.

Political career

Her political career began in 1973 when she was named executive assistant to the Labor Secretary and Special Assistant to then Governor, Rafael Hernández Colón. Calderón became the first woman Chief of Staff in Puerto Rico in 1985. Later, she served as Secretary of State, a position which includes the responsibilities of a Lieutenant Governor.
She resigned in 1989 to devote her efforts to non profit and community work, most notably the innovative Peninsula de Cantera Project, which sought to foster the grass roots redevelopment of one of the most poverty striken sectors of San Juan, located only steps away from the financial sector of the city. During those years, she also devoted time to some public service, appointed as President of the Board of the Puerto Rico Public Broadcasting Corporation. During those years, she also served on the board of major local corporations such as Banco Popular and Pueblo International and helping non-profit organizations such as The Sister Isolina Ferré Foundation.

Mayor of San Juan

She returned to public life in 1995, running in the 1995 Popular Democratic Party primary for Mayor of San Juan, winning handily over her three opponents by a huge margin, and then being elected Mayor of the city of San Juan in 1996, becoming the second woman in the city's history to serve in that office. As mayor, she undertook one of the largest public works program in the city to date, sponsoring various urban redevelopment projects to revitalize Rio Piedras, Santurce, Condado and other deteriorated sections of the city. She also initiated a "Special Communities Program" to assist poor communities and foster community volunteering.
During her time as mayor of San Juan, she received numerous distinctions and was granted several high profile audiences, including one with then-president Bill Clinton. She also became one of the leading voices in the fight for the Island of Vieques, where the residents had undertaken a struggle against the U. S. Navy bombing practices.
In 2000 she set her sights for the governor's seat. She led the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) during a heated and close campaign for Governor against Carlos Pesquera (PNP) and Ruben Berrios (PIP). With her victory, she became the first elected female governor in the history of Puerto Rico

Governor

Calderón's administration objectives dealt with issues such as Vieques (see Navy-Vieques protests), the fight against drugs and the extension to the rest of the island of the "Special Communities Programs". During her campaign for the governorship, she promised to "get the Navy out of Vieques in 60 days", but the Navy left as agreed in the historic Clinton-Rosselló agreement, on May 1, 2003. Just like another former Spanish colony in the Pacific, the Philippines, had done earlier under their first female president, Corazon Aquino. Calderon, like Aquino, was instrumental on dismantling American military presence on their islands.
Although a firm believer in the current political status of the island, an attempt to discuss mechanisms to resolve the status dispute that faces Puerto Rico among the three major political parties was unsuccessful.
Her administration was characterized by frequent changes of the members of her cabinet; including four different Police Superintendents. During her term, crime became a major issue as the local economy deteriorated when the government lost hundreds of millions of dollars of income, paid by the United States, for the lease of Puerto Rican land for military practices.
Even though Calderón had won the 2000 elections with a cry to end government corruption, her administration had to face many corruption scandals right away. Among her Party's leaders who quickly got in trouble were Senators Maribel Rodríguez, Julio Rodríguez Gómez, Bruno Ramos, and Modesto Agosto Alicea; Representatives Tony Méndez, Alida Arizmendi, and José Luis Colón, and the mayors of Vega Alta, Hormigueros, and Villalba. The corruption issue that many analysts claim brought about Calderón's decision to retire from office was the so-called Lavatón, a money-laundering scheme allegedly designed by the Popular Democratic Party to spend more money than what the Puerto Rico Electoral Law permitted, through various political action committees (PAC) from various candidates for the Legislature.
While these scandals are vastly outnumbered by those of the Rosselló administrations preceding Calderón's, she was rather uncomfortable with having to deal with corruption in her own administration (for example, Justice department prosecutors obtained a 12-year sentence for an NPP legislator accused of misappropriating a $600 air conditioning unit). Which demonstrates Calderón's extreme zeal in dealing with the subject of corruption, and the considerable discomfort she experienced with the Lavatón charges under her watch. She made corruption a major point of her political campaign, then used the office to reduce taxation on the wealthiest, directly benefitting herself.
Calderón announced in the summer of 2003 that she would not seek re-election in the 2004 Puerto Rican elections. After divorcing long-time husband Adolfo Krans, she married Ramón Cantero-Frau, a member of her cabinet on September 10, 2003. It was only the second time a wedding ceremony had been carried at ''La Fortaleza'', official residence of the Governor of Puerto Rico, since Roberto Sánchez Vilella in 1967, divorced to marry his personal assistant. The wedding ceremony became a media event broadcasted live on Puerto Rican television. Criticized by many as political theater to distract from a worsening economy.
On May 26, 2004, Calderón had to deal with a man who entered La Fortaleza, governor's mansion, with a knife and took a receptionist hostage, demanding to speak directly with Calderón. After Calderón negotiated with the hostage taker, the man dropped the knife and surrendered to police.
Calderón's daughter, Sila Mari Gonzalez along with her sister, María Elena González served as "First Ladies" of the Commonwealth. Sila Mari Gonzalez was elected to the Senate of Puerto Rico in November 2004 just as her mother completed her term of office as Governor. Sila Mari currently serves as Minority Whip in the Puerto Rico Senate and recently announced her retirement from politics, just as her mother did.

See also

★ List of famous Puerto Ricans - Governors

References

# La Fortaleza. Nuestra Gobernadora. San Juan, Puerto Rico: ''Government of Puerto Rico''. 2001.

External links