In Fashion Valley, high end retailers told VOSD contributor Jonah Valdez they’ve seen fewer Mexican visitors. In San Ysidro, right at the border, 60 businesses have had to shutter in the past year and a half in part due to peso devaluation.
Depending on the day, President Donald Trump has something to say about trade. Maybe it’ll be the end of the North American Free Trade Agreement or the start of a new border tax. Fear, justified or not about searches at the border has people shy to cross. It all has had an effect on the peso. The experts Valdez talked to are scared all the rhetoric — or the potential actions that follow — could harm San Diego’s manufacturing and tourism sectors as well.
In 2015, San Diego’s exports to Mexico were worth $5.5 billion and people are worried about our interlocked economies.
Valdez also gathered what we know so far about Trump’s view on Mexico and trade.
Border Report: Funding for Border Still in Limbo
There’s been lots of talk about border wall plan, but there still doesn’t appear to be any new money for the project in the budget deal poised to be approved by Congress.
In this week’s Border Report, VOSD contributor Brooke Binkowski talks about the central role San Diego has been playing in border wall and immigration planning, despite all the uncertainty.
Binkowski also rounds up news on what ICE officers can do in and near schools and other immigration issues, gives the latest updates to American activist Huge Castro, who went missing for several days in Mexico, and some other cross-border connections, like the National Collegiate Athletic Association making inroads in Mexico universities.
Letter: District Layoffs Will Drive Families Away from Public Schools
Christen Bernabe, parent of two children who attend the Language Academy, a language immersion magnet school in the San Diego Unified School District, writes that she recently learned that four of the 10 K-5 French teachers in her children’s French immersion program received layoff notices from the district in hopes to fill a $124 million budget shortfall.
“These layoffs, especially at our unique magnet school, are not the right solution to the district’s problems,” writes Bernabe. “Currently, the district is competing with charter schools and private schools for enrollment. By organizing these massive layoffs, the district is hurting its own image.”
She argues that the layoffs – a quick budget fix — will result in long-term damage in the district, forcing more parents to send their children to charter and private schools.
• San Diego Unified is partnering with schools in Baja California to help the transition for its former students who move to schools in Mexico, as more than 2,000 U.S.-born children have enrolled in schools south of the border since the election. (KPBS) We recently looked at what happens when a child’s parents are deported.
New Details Emerge About Sunday’s Shooting
Investigators have started digging into the motive behind a mass shooting Sunday in University City, where San Diego mechanic Peter Selis, shot seven people, killing one before police killed him.
Selis was despondent over a recent break up and heavily in debt, according to investigators. SDPD Chief Shelley Zimmerman said Selis called his former girlfriend during the shooting and told her what he was doing.
Selis was a white man and all but one of the shooting victims were either black or Latino. But Zimmerman immediately ruled out race as a possible motivating factor, the Union-Tribune reports.
The New York Daily News’ Shaun King isn’t buying that.
• The Daily Beast talked to a friend of Selis, who said before the shooting, he told his ex-girlfriend that he would “go down in a blaze of glory.”
Airbnb Angst
The U-T reports that Carlsbad is gearing up to crack down on illegal vacation rentals. In San Diego, activists are starting to hand out new signs that say all short-term vacation rentals are illegal and “violators will be prosecuted.”
The problem with that is that they won’t be. Yes, the city attorney, Mara Elliott, is cited on the sign. Yes, she did say vacation rentals were not permitted under any zoning laws the city has. However, the mayor decided he would not refer complaints to her office, though, for investigation and enforcement.
They all want to see a compromise worked out soon.
Dial 1 First
• A change from the California Public Utilities Commission means that starting next year you’ll have to dial 1 when calling local numbers if you’re calling an 858 area code from a 619 number or vice versa. (Times of San Diego)