Bulletin
December 20, 2021
As we approach the
end of another year, there is a flurry of activity that takes place in our
office, our home, and at the border. This holiday season we are thankful for
the reopening of borders to most people, the end of a difficult period for many
merchants, the access to vaccines, and the renewed hope of better days to come.
We also remember those we lost along the
way, the families and friends who loved them, people who had a long bout with
the virus and survived it, the businesses that closed their doors forever, and
the people affected because of it.
*****
Our board of
directors met on December 2nd at SIMNSA in Tijuana. There was great curiosity about Frank Carrillo’s
investment to modernize and increase the square footage of the facility. Well,
he did not disappoint. The place is nothing short of spectacular, with is
spacious lobbies, urgent care area and operating rooms, electric escalators,
use of display technology and friendly personnel.
The investment is well over $100 million. Above all,
Frank is making a statement about his belief in the future of medicine and
medical tourism in Tijuana. He sees the industry growing several fold in the
next decade. With 400 physicians and 1,000 employees, SIMNSA already serves at
least 2,000 patients daily and will now have room for many more.
*****
An important part of our
discussion at the board of directors meeting was about how the coalition grows
in stature. I invited Rafael Fernandez de Castro, Director of the
Center for US-Mexican Studies at UCSD, to facilitate the dialogue. In the
end, it is rather important that we change the way we do things as a border
region in the areas of advocacy, governance and relationships.
Fernandez de Castro put
forth a controversial thesis: Covid-19 unveiled the fact that cross-border
coordination is still far away from being ideal. Washington, D.C. continues to
monopolize decisions at the border, and Mexico City has marginal decision
making and influence. Second, the region’s lobbying efforts are outdated: There
is little lobbying in the first place and there is no strategy to lobby
Congress.
Third, we lack the
appropriate mechanisms for dialogue: We do not have enough governance --forums
such as the Border Governors Conference, have disappeared-- and the City
Mayors organization has been farmed out to a D.C. think tank.
He strongly suggested the
creation of a grand “Smart CaliBaja Coalition” to manage the various issues.
*****
The Tijuana
Development Council’s Tomás Pérez Vragas has been busy at work with a parks system and
mobility issues. Luis Lutteroth, the current President, has tapped Pérez-Vargas
to lead the organization’s efforts to create dozens of parks in Tijuana and to
accelerate mobility efforts to get fewer people to use vehicles and find ways
to leverage technology to obtain sorely needed data to better understand why and
where people travel.
At CDT’s Holiday party at the Lutteroth “compound” near
the Club Campestre, it was evident that there is a renewed effort to make sure
projects get done, but it is also clear that funding is a great concern.
Typically, funds for EDC and business association enabled projects in Baja
California come out of a 5% payroll tax. In recent years, state governments had
not abided by the fund’s stated purpose, diverting resources for other, many
times unspecified, needs.
Consequently, Tijuana faced a $200 million peso deficit
for the 2020-2021 years. Instead of paying CDT with money transfers, the former
state government opted to give away tracts of land in Tijuana whose claimed
value was debatable, to say the least.
The new state government is currently reviewing the
obligations left by the previous public administration and will hopefully go
back to the model of collecting payroll taxes and channeling them to productive
civil society and business association projects.
*****
I don’t always agree with Jason Wells of the San
Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, but some of his opinions are spot on. For
starters, he talks about a “balance” we had some 12 years ago when security and
economy were both given equal importance by the federal government and CBP,
thus allowing for shorter wait times.
Back in 2010, Alan
Bersin was CBP Commissioner,
overseeing the 57,000-employee work force. Bersin understood the equilibrium we
needed to have between trade and security. He has been associated with the
border since then, having occupied positions as Assistant Secretary for
International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs in the Department
of Homeland Security until January of 2017.
Wells also states that border communities as a whole do
not have adequate representation in D.C. This is quite evident in our
day-to-day dialogues with the crossing community as well as our local authorities.
I realize that our Congressional delegation has done good things for our
region, but it has fallen far short of where we need to be.
Now, with Chris
Magnus as new CBP chief in Washington, D.C., we are hopeful that we can
return to an era of more balance. And with our very own Pete Flores stepping away from his 11-year role as Director of
Field Operations in our sector and becoming Executive Assistant Commissioner, Office of Field Operations in
D.C., we will have a strategic connection to CBP.
*****
Our Border Trade
Alliance board meeting in mid-November featured Armando Taboada, head of CBP in Laredo, Texas. He listed a slew of important facts we should
keep in mind. The Del Rio, Texas border crossing was shut down for one entire
week due to migrant camps and attempts at crossing. This was the first time in 34 years we had
seen a closure. And to give you a sense
for the importance of Texas as a trading state, there are 23 ports of entry
with commercial facilities on the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as 96 commercial
lanes. 47 of these lanes –49% of the total-- are in Laredo, and four more will
be added this year at the city’s World Trade Bridge!
*****
The November meeting of our US-Mexico Foundation C26+ group looked at trade and people movement
changes at our border as well as expectations. My experienced colleague Gerry Schwebel, Executive Vice President of IBC Bank in South Texas, has truly
great expectations for the border, including “maintaining a strong supply chain
network”, anticipating a much “stronger binational infrastructure planning
effort”, and eyeing a “technology infrastructure movement.” Another colleague, Karyl Fowler of startup sensation Transmute (www.transmute.industries),
sees interoperable data sharing and technology integration in the steel,
automotive and ecommerce sectors as keys to a new, digitized border.
There are challenges such as CBP imposed disruptions with
pilots. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they last far
too long. The end result is that we have multiple pilots but infrequent implementations.
Another challenge is CTPAT, the program that allows for more
expedited trade for trusted shippers. Its growth has been stagnant.
*****
The Smart Border Coalition recently launched a CaliBaja Travel Experience Task Force to
galvanize efforts from various groups to advocate for better
flowing borders. We have a lot of pressure to perform as
a region, and though CaliBaja is known for its innovative cross-border dynamic
and its collaboration, there is much to improve.
Let’s take lobbying as an example. While there are groups
and companies across the U.S. that devote millions to getting the word out
about what they want, creating sophisticated campaigns and reaping the benefits
of organized and well-funded work, we as a region cannot claim to have such organization
or firepower. We are characterized by groups doing significant yet mostly
isolated efforts to advocate for border issues, but it is in doing things
together that we are going to get a bigger bang for the buck.
******
WinWerks
continues to present their water treatment projects for Baja California as a
complement to Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) funding on the U.S. side of the border. The EPA has already
chosen a set of solutions for the Tijuana
River Valley (TRV), which it presented late last month. The Mexican
Government, through the Foreign
Relations Ministry (SRE) has developed a 15-project plan for water use and
treatment along the entire Mexican border with the U.S., and 7 of these
projects are in Tijuana. Their value is in the 500 million dollar range.
However, Tijuana projects do not address water treatment and reuse. They focus
on fixing an outdated distribution and collection system. I was surprised to
see this as the sole objective.
*****
I made a statement at Nadbank’s December 3rd public meeting that in part
addressed the latest positive news about the bank’s decision to expand the
scope of projects it handles, whether loans or grants. Essentially, I asked the
bank to expand its grant making capacity
in 4 areas.
The first is an opportunity to grant seed money to a mobility as a service solution (MaaS) that
allows passengers in vehicles to book themselves before they go to the border,
thus allowing them to wait at home and not in line. The
second is to work with our coalition to fund a Qualcomm-based Smart City program to
enable traveler data at the border. The third option is to work with border
communities and CBP to fund staffing for
our ports of entry. The last point focused on supporting United States
companies that have practical, technically and economically sound strategies to treat and reuse water in
Tijuana.
*****
Olivia
Graeve, UCSD Professor and head of the University’s Center for Resilient
Materials and Systems, has walked the binational walk all her
life. Back in 2013 she launched a virtual summer research experience called ENLACE (http://resilientmaterials.ucsd.edu/ENLACE) for high school and college students
from Tijuana and San Diego. Next summer she expects 200 students. She is
working on the CaliBaja Symposium
for 2022 to highlight ENLACE and its graduates. She is planning for a huge
celebration with over 500 guests!
*****
It was excellent to see Mayor Todd Gloria next to Department of Homeland Security chief
Alejandro Mayorkas on December 7th. Mayorkas referred to Mayor Gloria as his
“partner” and underscored the collaboration with the City of San Diego. In
part, Mayorkas was celebrating border economic prosperity with the lifting of
restrictions to non-essential travel so long as travelers show proof of
Covid-19 vaccination.
Kudos to Paola Avila, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff,
for having a hand in a strategy to show Gloria’s “muscle” as the Mayor of the
largest city along the border. I am convinced this strategy will continue to
bear fruit.
*****
I appreciated the opportunity
to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar, EPA Director Michael
Regan, IBWC chief Maria Elena Giner and CILA
Director Adriana Resendez in the context of EPA’s new water treatment
solution for the Tijuana River Valley. Mexico’s Foreign Relations
Ministry was also present. Leading the Mexican group was Roberto
Velasco, Chief for North America, with Consul General Carlos González
Gutiérrez. I was also joined by Baja California’s Water
Management, Sanitation and Protection Secretary, Francisco Robledo.
It is increasingly clear to me
that these top level people want to solve the Tijuana River Valley crisis once
and for all and that there is real camaraderie between them. I want to thank
our host, Consul General Tom Reott of the Tijuana Consulate, for making
this possible.
*****
Air quality at the border is now a “thing.” In the months and years to come, the
quality of the air we breathe, particularly at or close to the ports of entry,
will be a significant factor in our approach to elected officials and organizations
like Nadbank. For decades, crossers on foot and in vehicles have been subjected
to abnormal levels of toxic fumes. We have not yet scratched the surface of the
health impact these conditions have wrought. It is time we not only monitor the
air but use our learnings to influence policy.
In Mexicali, there is an
organization called Redspira (https://www.redspira.org/) that has
done more to monitor air quality at the border than any other organization. Its
founder, Alberto Mexía,
is an entrepreneur (www. www.certuit.com) who funds most of the needs of the small
organization. In the last few years, he has been able to set up 150 monitors
in different households and businesses in the Mexicali Valley and has an
incredible amount of data coming from all neighborhoods in the city and valley.
Thanks to his efforts, the Imperial Valley, CalEPA, and others have
taken notice. A $50,000 dollar donation from Imperial Valley allowed Alberto to
set up most of the sensors in place today. He has partnered with the Comité Cívico Ambiental de Mexicali (www.facebook.com/comitecivicoambiental/)
to get the word out, in turn creating various educational campaigns, primarily
in elementary schools.
It
is conscientious and “invested” people such as Alberto who will help us move
the needle on environmental justice for all borderlanders.
*****
Maria Elena Giner, International Boundary and Water Commission
(IBWC) Director, met with me and a very successful water treatment expert
to discuss Tijuana River Valley (TRV) treatment and reuse needs on the
Mexican side of the border. The meeting was especially useful since the EPA has
just approved a comprehensive water treatment plan for the TRV on the U.S. side
of the border.
The EPA will be working
hand-in-hand with the IBWC for years to come due to the approved $300 million
for water treatment and water pollution prevention in the United States. There will be another $300 million needed to
complete the U.S. side. The expansion of the International Waste Water
Treatment Plant’s capacity in San Diego will be subject to an upcoming bid.
To dispel any confusion, the
role of the IBWC is to apply boundary and water treaties between the U.S. and
Mexico and settling differences that may arise in their application. It is
technology agnostic, is not an entity that does public-private partnerships,
does not given out concessions of any type and does not assume debt of any
kind.
*****
It was indeed a pleasure to
speak with Senator Toni Atkins, current President of the California State
Senate. She is a San Diegan with a wealth of experience in government and
someone who is deeply concerned about the quality of our air and water at the
border, among other aspects of the cross-border relationship. The Senator and I discussed many issues,
including vehicles and used tires imported illegally into Baja California, long
wait times and the effect on people’s health, Otay Mesa East Port of Entry, and
cargo rail crossing at Tecate. She has two very dynamic and sharp people at her
side in district representative Diana Lara and policy director Deanna
Spehn.
*****
Our next online Stakeholders
Working Committee meeting will convene on January 13, 2022 from 9:00AM
to 11:00AM in San Diego. You have been
receiving invitations. Please register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcldeCgrzgvHN37YaqAp1psbns6ozq6m5TX
After registering, you will receive a confirmation
email containing information about joining the meeting.
Sincerely,
Gustavo De La Fuente
Executive Director
gdelafuente@smartbordercoalition.com / (619) 814-1386
