Morning Report: Tijuana Develops Tech Startup Scene

Tijuana has a few important things going for it; things like affordable housing, a skilled technology workforce and close proximity to the world’s busiest border crossing. All of these ingredients are key for cities trying to become hot tech startup scenes, but Tijuana is missing the most important ingredient: tech startups.

“The border’s tech startup scene is still stuck in its infancy,” Kinsee Morlan reports. There have been a couple of near misses; companies that moved to Tijuana or started up there, but so far they’ve failed to generate any significant products. “What we need is an Angry Birds to come out of our binational region,” one tech entrepreneur told Morlan.

In the meantime, local groups are working on networking and connecting tech companies with customers, and small software companies are focused on showing customers the benefits of hiring Mexican software engineers.

MTS Bus Terminal vs. the McDonald’s Building

San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System got bad news when a judge removed an injunction and allowed people to access the agency’s new bus terminal via an adjacent building home to a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro. People will be free to use an elevator inside the building and walk out a door straight into the terminal.

This fight is over a door, but Andrew Keatts writes it’s just a small part of the mess MTS has created by building this bus terminal and using eminent domain to do it. “It’s one piece of the confusing jumble of trolley and local bus riders, pedestrians, drivers and people looking for long-distance buses at the border,” Keatts reports.

A previous ruling had allowed MTS to erect a fence to block the door leading from the building to the terminal. MTS was so sure it would win the court case, their lawyers didn’t pass along a proposed settlement offer to the MTS board. But Wednesday’s ruling went the other way. “The court cannot find that MTS is likely to prevail on the merits,” the judge wrote.

The Learning Curve: What if School Choice Ended?

This week, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher wondered out-loud on Twitter if San Diego’s climate change goals would be helped along if children were not allowed to attend schools other than the ones in their own neighborhood. Currently, under the school choice program, parent’s can apply to send their kids to schools in other neighborhoods.

Mario Koran notes that ending school choice would be a giant change for San Diego, and one that wouldn’t appear to have the support of many high-profile leaders.

Also, Koran catches up on the continued reverberations caused by our report on how San Diegans have to pay $500 to have their children ride the school bus, and how the district sends parents to collections agencies when payment isn’t received.

The Competing Initiatives for the Stadium Land: San Diego Explained

Next year is shaping up to be the year voters decided what to do with the stadium that was once home to the Chargers. At least two proposals are seeking voter approval; the one we know will be on the ballot is the SoccerCity plan. That one envisions a soccer stadium, a park and a bunch of other private development at the Mission Valley site. The other plan currently gathering signatures is one that would allow SDSU to buy the land and develop it according to their own needs. Scott Lewis and NBC 7’s Monica Dean look at some of the details of the two proposals in our most recent San Diego Explained.

• SDSU proposed a design for a new stadium that they might like to build at the Mission Valley site on Thursday. (KPBS)

SDG&E Loses CPUC Decision

The California Public Utilities Commission is the latest body to reject SDG&E’s request to pass the 2007 wildfire’s costs to San Diego ratepayers. SDG&E officials vowed to continue the fight in court.

The CPUC has some other big decisions San Diegans are waiting on, in the meantime.

Homeless Happenings

• The first large tent to house the homeless is set to open on Friday in Logan Heights, and officials are pointing out that it will be a lot more than just shelter. “If you think about it, it’s a whole new line of business,” said Kim Mitchell, the CEO of Veterans Village of San Diego. (Union Tribune)

• Pacific Standard looks at how the hepatitis A crisis in San Diego has pushed local leaders to move more swiftly on housing the homeless.

• As police have been aggressively directing the homeless out of downtown, more northern communities like Normal Heights are complaining of increased activities by homeless people in their neighborhood. (San Diego Reader)

Lightning Round

• The sheriff has reprimanded a deputy who is running against him to be sheriff. (KPBS)

• The number of women who have accused San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Fischer of sexual misconduct has increased to five. (Union-Tribune)

• San Diego may install gates at the bottom of the staircases at La Jolla Cove, to stop the sea creatures from climbing the stairs and pooping on the sidewalk. (10 News)

• San Diego tourism honchos think our great weather and fun activities are enough to make us an attractive medical tourism spot. (StatNews)

• The yearly December Nights festival in Balboa Park is such an amazing event that even public buses will avoid getting too close to its overwhelming awesomeness this year. (Times of San Diego)

• Two “minor Instagram celebrities” from San Diego are facing up to seven years in prison for exposing their buttocks for a photo at a temple in Bangkok. (LGBT Weekly)

Seth Hall is a local writer and technologist. You can email him at voice@s3th.com or follow him on Twitter: @loteck.