Upala approves community video surveillance and a new tax to fund it

The Municipal Council of Upala approved the creation of the canton’s Community Surveillance and Security Service, with video surveillance and electronic monitoring as its central axis, and established the rate with which taxpayers will finance this service. The decision is contained in agreement 028 of session 0198-2026, held on August 20, 2026, and in its addendum, agreement 018 of session 0202-2026 of September 3, 2026, published in La Gaceta No. 184 on Wednesday, September 30, 2026 (official reference IN202601126915).

The Municipality of Upala based both agreements on articles 11, 169, and 170 of the Political Constitution; 4 paragraph a), 13 paragraph b), 43, 62, 64, 68, and 83 of the Municipal Code; 4 of the Tax Norms and Procedures Code; 11, 16, 128, 129, 132, 136, and 157 of the General Law of Public Administration; judgment number 10134-1999 of the Constitutional Chamber and opinions C-175-2013, C-189-2019, C-108-2021, and PGR-C-236-2024 of the Attorney General’s Office.

A service with a monitoring center and police support

Agreement 028 approves the creation, continuity, organization, and gradual development of the service, whose central axis comprises:

• Monitoring center and video, surveillance, and connectivity devices.
• System operation protocols.
• The Municipal Police as a complementary component for incident response and prevention, through inter-institutional coordination.

The vote consisted of five positive votes from the proprietary council members present: Wilberto Tenorio García, Adilia Reyes Calero, Francisca Ortiz Chévez, Víctor Campos Bolaños, and Angie Mora Gómez. Council member Marcianeth Reyes Noguera and council member Juan José Segura Lobo voted against and provided reasoned justifications.

Cost recovery and 90-day operational plan

The Council approved the cost recovery model exclusive to the service. The recoverable structure includes alert response, support, connectivity, maintenance, data storage and custody, as well as the salaries and burdens of the Municipal Police officers in incident response, along with equipment, vehicles, and fuel.

Additionally, it ordered the responsible unit to present within a period of 90 calendar days:

• A study of loads and sectorization of technological coverage and response by district.
• An influence map with the effective coverage of the service.
• Inventory and location of devices, schedules, service levels, and response times.
• Incident protocol, quarterly goals, and evaluation mechanisms.
• The regulation for the provision of the service, with the safeguarding of sensitive information.

The new rate and its entry into force

The addendum approved the tariff model and the rate for the security, preventive community surveillance, and electronic monitoring service, and authorized the municipal administration to publish it in La Gaceta. The approved detail is as follows:

• Annual factor: 0.00032299.
• Annual rate per million: ₡323.
• Quarterly rate per million: ₡81.
• Monthly rate per million: ₡27.

The rate will come into effect 30 calendar days after its publication in the Official Gazette. The edict is published only once and is not subject to a legal deadline; it is signed by Jorge Mario González Torres in his capacity as acting municipal mayor of Upala, and the mayor Yamileth López Obregón or whoever holds her position is designated as responsible for the publication.

Opposition rejected and correction of a material error

The Council resolved the opposition presented by Eduardo Villegas Barrantes and, after analyzing his arguments and the mayor’s office’s response, rejected the request to eliminate the community surveillance and security service. It also ordered the rectification of a material error in the minutes MU-CM-ACTA-0186-2026: the total base used in the formula is ₡405,978,266,110.50 and not ₡4,005,978,266,110.50, without altering the rest of the minutes. The technical memory and calculation reports will be published once in La Gaceta, and the agreement will be notified to the opponent and the involved municipal departments.

The impact is direct for all taxpayers in the canton of Upala: community security will no longer depend on voluntary contributions and will instead be sustained by a municipal cost-recovery rate, charged monthly, quarterly, or annually according to the approved factor. Furthermore, the model conditions future operation on a technical plan and a regulation for the safeguarding of sensitive data, which will define how many devices are installed, which districts are covered, and how quickly the Municipal Police respond to each alert.

Source: La Gaceta No. 184, Wednesday, September 30, 2026, Municipal Regime, pp. 85-86 (official reference: IN202601126915).