Morning Report: Can San Diego Save Its Cross-Border Economy? 

If President Donald Trump moves ahead with plans for higher tariffs on products from Mexico, San Diego’s economy may need a major makeover. 

It’s no biggie, the only thing at stake is the county’s $315 billion gross domestic product fueled by cross–border commerce and manufacturing.

How it works now: San Diego businesses rely on 60,000 workers, who live in Mexico and cross the border each day. Many products, like the iconic Toyota Tacoma truck and medical devices, cross the San Diego-Tijuana border multiple times as they’re being built. 

Even without tariff hikes, business leaders are already wringing their hands over the higher cost of goods and labor shortages caused in part by Trump’s immigration crackdown. 

South County Reporter Jim Hinch takes a crack at one of the biggest questions facing the region: What happens if federal policies force a break-up of San Diego’s border economy?

This is the first piece in our new series this week celebrating Voice of San Diego’s 20th anniversary: What’s at stake for the region over the next two decades?

Put bluntly by one local businessman: “I don’t see manufacturers coming here to build a plant,” he said. “Land and labor are just too expensive.” 

Read the full story here. 

Big Questions Facing San Diego in the Next 20 Years: Our reporters are focusing this week on the challenges, opportunities and visions San Diego will be forced to tackle in the next two decades. 

Can San Diego keep people from falling into homelessness? Can we protect the working-class and seniors from getting pushed out of our region? Can we end our dependence on cars? 

That’s just a little taste of what you can expect to read this week. 

Special Politics Monday: First Up, Dem Chair Contest

Tomorrow the San Diego Democratic Party will select its new chair. The contest became contentious as the winner is expected to last several years in charge of the party after years of turnover since Will Rodriguez-Kennedy resigned abruptly three years ago. 

Now, Rodriguez-Kennedy wants the job back after he resolved accusations that forced him out. But Sara Ochoa who has been active in Democratic politics for 20 years and ran the South Area for the party wants it too. They created campaign-like materials and have methodically courted every local party member who has a vote on the committee and every person who may influence them. 

Our contributor Walker Armstrong profiled the race for a special edition of the Politics Report. We’ve opened this one up to all readers. Read his story here. 

Why it matters: The parties have enormous influence in local political races as they can raise nearly unlimited sums and steer spending to help preferred candidates. Who controls that matters and it also matters if they are good at it. 

What they said: Each candidate spoke at length with Voice of San Diego about their vision for the San Diego County Democratic Party. They address the different controversies around their leadership and what’s at stake with this race. 

Read the Q&A with Rodriguez-Kennedy here and Ochoa here. 

Next Up: The New Lincoln Club Boss

Kevin Faulconer, former mayor of San Diego, is now in charge of the Lincoln Club Business League, which has been effective occasionally in political races. He says he’s going to be loud there. Here’s a short Q&A we did with him edited to fit nicely into this morning newsletter.

Voice: What’s your plan for the Lincoln Club?

KF: “We’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to actively support good policies that support job growth and working families and fight aggressively against those that don’t. It’s important that San Diego have a voice for job growth.”

Voice: It’s named after Abraham Lincoln. What’s your view of Abraham Lincoln?

KF: “He fought for opportunity and made huge difference in our country. The principles of standing up doing the right thing are important. The Lincoln Club Business League is a group of businesses that understand that nexus of business and the economy and politics and policy. You have to take a stand when they’re in jeopardy.

“A strong economy is essential for a great quality of life. We have to have a strong economic base and we have a real opportunity to step up there.”

Voice: When you look at policies you want to take a stand on, what are some that come to mind? 

KF: “We’re going to be very engaged on the tourism minimum wage and discussions of increased taxes at the county of San Diego. Those all have consequences on our economy. It’s important that we have balance in those discussions and we want to be active to ensure that we hold the government accountable.”

Voice: Do you want to kill the minimum wage push or make it more palatable to adopt for businesses?

KF: “At the end of the day, our tourism economy is darn important and we should do everything we can to grow it and be careful not to pass policies that have a negative impact on job growth. It could lead to thousands of job losses. We want people to come to San Diego. We want conventions to come to San Diego and spend money and when they do, that generates money to pay police officers and keep parks clean. We have to be very careful not to set it backward because we are in a competitive environment with other regions.”

Finally, from Sacramento: Issa’s Seat Is in the Redistricting Blast Zone

As Texas pushes a President Donald Trump-supported plan to add more Republican congressional districts, California Democrats are trying to “fight fire with fire” by redrawing voting maps to give the state five more Democratic seats. 

One of those is Rep. Darrell Issa’s East County district, the only reliably red seat in the county. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats aim to hold a special election in November to let voters decide on the new maps. “Today is liberation day in California,” Newsom said at a Los Angeles press conference on the plan Thursday.

Read more here. 

If you want to dig further, local consultant and occasional contributor to Voice Mason Herron has “a comparison of the registration data comparing the current (2021) lines to the proposed (2026) lines” in this post.

Another Parent Arrested by ICE While Waiting Outside School

Minutes before students at Linda Vista Elementary were let out, immigration agents pulled up in an unmarked van and arrested a father waiting near the school to pick up his child, district officials announced. 

The student’s mother was later called to come pick up their waiting child.

During a Friday morning press conference at the school, San Diego Unified Superintendent Fabiola Bagula said the incident struck fear into the community.

“This is traumatic,” Bagula said, adding that “There may be a lot of debates about immigration reform, but there should be no debate that this kind of tactic is inhumane.”

Board President Cody Petterson echoed Bagula’s sentiments.

“You should not be abducted as you’re waiting for a child to come out of school. It doesn’t matter, honestly, where you are on the political spectrum. No one thinks that’s a good thing,” Petterson said.

Read more here. 

Related: Reporter Gustavo Solis at KPBS explores in a new story how the city of El Cajon entered the nation’s immigration enforcement discussion. Decisions by the City Council have cost the city’s police department some public trust, KPBS reports. 

In Other News 

• San Diego’s unemployment rate has gone up. The latest numbers show it’s at 5.2 percent compared to last month’s rate of 4.9 percent. (Union-Tribune)  
• Encinitas is updating its ban on public camping to include private property. (Union-Tribune) 
• A new report details the economic impact of the Midway Rising project in the Sports Arena area. The project will generate $285 million in annual economic impact, according to the report. “It’s like having another Comic-Con in San Diego,” one person told NBC 7.  

The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer, Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña and Jakob McWhinney. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis. 

The post Morning Report: Can San Diego Save Its Cross-Border Economy?  appeared first on Voice of San Diego.