You can tell a lot about a city from the way it stages public events.
In Imperial Beach last week, the city’s laid back, diverse, scrappy spirit was on full display at Mayor Paloma Aguirre’s annual State of City speech. The state of the city, Aguirre assured residents in a rousing, campaign-style address, is “strong.” From the audience’s point of view, the event felt more like a party.
Imperial Beach is an only-in-Southern-California combination of surf destination, military town and immigrant melting pot. Once “the cheapest community to live in” in coastal San Diego, according to a City Councilmember’s recent description, the city now faces a range of tough challenges: Rising home prices, a sewage crisis in the Tijuana River exacerbated by cross-border trade and a promised federal immigration crackdown that has struck fear into immigrant communities across the United States. Half of Imperial Beach residents are Latino, according to the U.S. Census. Nearly one in five was born outside the United States.
All of that and more was evident Thursday evening at South Bay Union School District’s Burress Auditorium, where a crowd of city officials, regional dignitaries, surfers, a pastor, an indigenous activist, students, military veterans and assorted other locals gathered to hear Aguirre sum up Imperial Beach’s past year.
Some attendees wore shorts and flipflops. Others sported power suits. One arrived on a vintage strand cruiser bicycle. A quartet of nervous ROTC cadets from nearby Mar Vista High School
presented the American flag, drawing salutes from veterans in the audience. A student mariachi band warmed up the crowd. School artwork on the auditorium walls included a cut-out paper flower with a photo of a smiling girl in pigtails whose handwritten words said in Spanish: “Because I am bilingual, I can help people who speak Spanish but don’t speak English, and I can help people who speak English but don’t speak Spanish.”
Aguirre is running for an open seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Her speech rang with the “we can do it!” cadences of a practiced campaigner.
“While you may be laid back when grabbing a coffee at Cow-A-Bunga [a popular beachfront café in Imperial Beach] or drinking at the Plank [a decades-old local tavern], when it comes to protecting our city or taking on big battles for our whole region, you don’t take no for an answer,” Aguirre told the audience. “And as your mayor, neither do I.”
She tallied a list of civic accomplishments: New federal funding to resolve the sewage crisis, a recently enacted tenant protection ordinance, new apartments for seniors, a raise for city employees, improved park facilities and progress on homelessness.
Many of those same accomplishments turned up a few days later in a campaign email Aguirre sent to supporters highlighting the speech and some recent key endorsements she received from powerful labor unions.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” Aguirre said in the campaign email, echoing a theme that ran through her speech.
“You shouldn’t have to be rich to live in the Golden State,” she said Thursday evening. “We’re fighting on the side of everyday people who deserve a government that actually stands up and gets the job done for them…Because this is our city. And we’re just getting started.”
In other supervisor race news: San Diego City Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who is also running for the vacant South County seat on the County Board of Supervisors, celebrated the passage on Monday of an affordable housing ordinance she had spearheaded that will make it easier to ensure subsidized apartments for lower income residents remain affordable when apartment buildings change owners. In a statement following unanimous City Council approval of the new law, Moreno said the measure “will keep San Diegans from losing the affordable homes they live in.”
ICYMI: Chula Vista Mayor John McCann, also in the race for Supervisor, sat for an extended interview with Voice of San Diego about his candidacy last week. You can read the full story here.
Immigration Protest Stirs Debate in National City
Heated debate broke out on social media following an hours-long pro-immigration protest Friday in National City that drew thousands to the city’s streets for an initially peaceful demonstration that later devolved into brawls, cars doing donuts in crowded intersections and participants brandishing weapons.
“What happen[ed] on Highland [Avenue, the main site of the protest] was supposed to be A PEACEFUL PROTEST, it got out of hand, not sure who is to blame here,” posted San Diego resident Valerie Dominguez on a Facebook community group called National City Neighborhood Watch the day after the protest.
Like many other commenters on the community group, Dominguez said she feared the protest could backfire by drawing unwanted attention from federal immigration authorities to the area’s immigrant community.
Other commenters leapt to the protesters’ defense. “The real villain here is the Republican president and his racist agendas,” said self-described military veteran and National City resident Sebastian Aldrete. “It’s every citizen’s right to peacefully protest.”
Though some commenters denounced National City officials for greenlighting the protest, Mayor Ron Morrison said “there was no contact with the city” prior to the event. “We found out [about the protest] via social media,” Morrison said.
“To protest, that’s all well and good,” Morrison said. “Then the crazies took over.”
Players’ Visit a Homerun for Shelter Residents
Residents at the San Diego Rescue Mission’s South County Lighthouse homeless shelter in National City were in the shelter’s large, airy dining hall Friday morning when suddenly a group of unexpected guests walked into the room.
Seven San Diego Padres baseball players and an entourage of coaches, assistants, spokespeople and news reporters swept into the shelter as part of a community relations tour of a local elementary school, a naval base and the Lighthouse shelter.
The entire shelter convulsed with excitement as the baseball players toured the facilities, heard a presentation about homeless services and signed autographs and posed for pictures.
The Euclid Avenue shelter opened last year in a former church building with 162 beds, a full-service kitchen, free laundry facilities and a range of services for residents, including counselors, psychiatrists and other providers aiming to help residents regain control over their lives and transition into housing.
The Padres players on Friday included third baseman Manny Machado, infielder Luis Arraez and pitchers Robert Suarez, Randy Vasquez, Jhony Brito and Adrian Morejon. Children at the shelter ran from room to room as the tour progressed, whispering and strategizing with each other about how best to approach the players.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but it was cool,” said 12-year-old shelter resident Jaylind Casas after several players signed his baseball. “They look the same as on TV.” He paused to reflect. “And they have a lot of necklaces.”
Casas said that before he and his mom, Priscilla Cortez, arrived at the shelter just before Christmas, they had been living at a motel. Before that, he said, “we were in our car. It was uncomfortable.”
Pitcher Adrian Morejon said touring the shelter was “amazing. I see a lot of homeless people every day when I come to the stadium…This shelter is good.”
‘The Artist Formerly Known As’ Chula Vista Councilmember’s 100-Day Plan
Recently elected Chula Vista City Councilmember Cesar Fernandez this week unveiled a detailed plan for what he and his City Hall staff aim to accomplish during his first year in office.
Fernandez, who served as a trustee on the Chula Vista Elementary School District school board before his election in November to the City Council, listed four priorities in what he called his “Year One Impact Plan”: Constituent engagement, public safety and workforce and economic development.
The plan also lays out timelines and what Fernandez called “metrics for success.”
Shortly after his election, Fernandez vowed to develop a 100-day plan outlining objectives for his first 100 days in office. The plan, he said, took longer than expected to develop and the 100 days are now roughly half over. So, the plan was rebranded.
“Here’s the ‘artist formerly known as The 100 Day Plan,’” Fernandez quipped when he texted a copy of the plan to Voice of San Diego. You have to appreciate a politician who can joke about himself.