No matter how you feel about last week’s election, one thing is certain: Local votes mattered most here in our corner of San Diego County.
Yes, federal policy affects everything, especially major anticipated changes in immigration enforcement (more about that below). But it’s local issues — city hall, schools, streets, parks, businesses — that we live with day to day.
In South County, voters signaled they want change. Two newcomers were swept onto the Chula Vista City Council in lopsided votes. I wrote last week about incoming councilmembers Michael Inzunza’s and Cesar Fernandez’s big agendas. In short: Stepped-up enforcement of crime and homelessness, more parks and jobs for Chula Vista’s neglected neighborhoods and sped-up home development on the city’s southeastern fringe.
Voters also approved every tax and bond measure on the ballot. That translates to more than $2 billion in local sales and property tax hikes flowing to local schools, streets, parks and storm drains. The message from voters: Fix up our city, no matter the cost.
Immigration Fears
In National City, the election brought change of a different sort. Newly reelected Councilmember Jose Rodriguez, returned to office in a landslide, said the prospect of a coming federal immigration crackdown had reordered his priorities.
“I am bracing for what is to come and preparing,” Rodriguez said of possible widespread deportations of immigrants, a top campaign promise of incoming President Donald Trump.
Rodriguez said he would not abandon his own campaign vows to boost affordable housing and home ownership in his city. But he said he also would prioritize finding alternative funding sources for federally backed infrastructure projects likely to be cut by Trump and shielding city residents from the worst effects of federal immigration policy.
“We will have to fend for our own,” he said.
Rodriguez, who chairs the public safety committee of the San Diego Association of Governments, said he would seek to bar federal homeland security officials from viewing immigration information in a countywide criminal justice database.
He said he would also “make sure we as a city” follow state laws that bar local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal officials seeking to deport suspected undocumented criminals.
Rodriguez said Trump’s policies would “create chaos in our community, dividing families left and right.” That’s true in more ways than one. Voters in Rodriguez’s City Council district actually backed Trump with surprising enthusiasm, according to local election results. Some precincts in the district awarded the former president up to 46 percent of their votes.
“As a Latino man, I think many of our people forgot who we are and where we come from,” Rodriguez said of the vote. “The notion I would support someone who wants to expel an individual not for doing anything wrong but because of being undocumented is disheartening and I still cannot fully comprehend that.”
National City’s other City Council race remains too close to call with two-thirds of votes counted. I’ll write about that race, plus results in Imperial Beach and Coronado, next week.
Union Vote at Sweetwater Authority
Hourly employees at one of South County’s main providers of drinking water will vote later this month on joining a powerful nationwide union representing utilities workers.
The move to join the 820,000-member International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers comes amid stalled contract negotiations and more general employee dissatisfaction with what one worker called “persistent issues of management bullying and mistreating” employees and their current in-house union.
Employees in favor of the switch to IBEW say they hope the bigger union will provide more muscular representation. Carlos Quintero, the agency’s general manager, declined to comment on the vote. In an interview earlier this year, Quintero said contract negotiations were stalled over “compensation, mostly salary adjustments and benefits and so forth.”
Voting will commence Nov. 25 and conclude on Dec. 20.
Ghost Bus in Imperial Beach
Imperial Beach residents continue to give a thumbs-down to a new Metropolitan Transportation Service rapid bus line from the U.S.-Mexico border to the city’s iconic pier.
Residents, including city officials, say the 227 Rapid Bus line’s 60-foot-long articulated electric buses, which run every 15 minutes morning to night from the Otay Mesa Transit Center to the Imperial Beach Pier, are noisy, clog up city streets — and are mostly empty.
The line, which cost $37 million to implement plus an additional $4.5 million per year to operate, replaced and expanded a previous line linking the border transit center with a trolley station at Iris Avenue in San Ysidro. The new line extends the route to Imperial Beach and adds all-new electric buses with increased frequency. The new buses began running in late 2023.
“I see this bus go by my business every day and no one is on it,” said Marty Mattes, who owns Ye Olde Plank Inn a few blocks from the pier and also leads the Imperial Beach Chamber of Commerce. “Why was that allowed?”
Ridership statistics provided by MTS in response to a public records request from an Imperial Beach resident show that an average of 796 passengers boarded the bus line each day at the Otay Mesa Transit Center in June of this year. Nearly all of those passengers —734— exited the bus at the San Ysidro trolley station. Each of the remaining stops between the trolley station and Imperial Beach Pier saw no more than 23 boardings per day.
Residents and some city officials say they want MTS to reduce the size and frequency of buses on the Imperial Beach portion of the route. “I just think a smaller vehicle would be much more appropriate for the level of actual use by Imperial Beach residents,” City Councilmember Mitch McKay said in an email. “Less wear and tear on the roads and less traffic congestion.”
MTS already rerouted part of the bus line in Imperial Beach earlier this year in response to residents’ concerns.
In an email sent after press time, MTS spokesperson Mark Olson said the rapid bus line is “an important connection for Imperial Beach residents, workers, and visitors” that links riders to the border, beach and the rest of the MTS transit network. “MTS will continue to monitor the performance of the route and make any adjustments as necessary to increase performance,” Olson said.
In Other News
- Here’s an antidote to post-election stress: Nov. 13 is World Kindness Day (yes, there is such a thing), and Chula Vista’s own Kindness Club (yep, also such a thing) is celebrating with a weeklong series of kindness-oriented events in partnership with local volunteer clubs, city agencies and businesses. Activities include a book giveaway at local schools, care packages at the South Bay Family YMCA and a food giveaway by Sprouts Farmers Market. Details here.
- Want to learn more about South County’s indigenous heritage? The Bonita Museum and Cultural Center hosts its third annual Gathering of Nations celebration of local indigenous culture 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16. Events include a dance presentation, a Kumeyaay market and basket weaving. Details here.
- The San Diego Sheriff’s Office is investigating a series of thefts of expensive metal flower vases from the Glen Abbey Memorial Park & Mortuary in Bonita, the Union-Tribune reports. Thieves likely sell the $1,000 decorative vases to scrap metal dealers.
- An ongoing research project at the mouth of the Tijuana River detected an uptick in water-borne oxygen levels in the estuary following repairs at a key Mexican sewage treatment facility that had been a contributor to the region’s long-running sewage crisis. The rise in oxygen signals possible improvements in an ecosystem that has seen plummeting numbers of fish and other aquatic life because of the sewage. (Union-Tribune)
Update: This post has been updated with a statement from MTS.