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King Tides, Otay Mesa’s Industrial Growth and Disturbing Feminicides

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Murphy Development broke ground on a 79,050 square foot industrial building. The project will complete the total 2.1 million square foot Siempre Viva Business Park.

Siempre Viva Business Park has a large lineup of Fortune 500 companies, including General Dynamics, FedEx and Tyson.

Murphy Development is also working on the 1 million square foot Brown Field Technology Park.

Andy Irwin, senior vice president and director of marketing for Murphy Development described the vast growth of Otay Mesa in a press release saying, “Otay Mesa is enjoying a renaissance, spurred on by several major projects. The Cross Border Express Terminal (CBX) connects Otay Mesa directly to Tijuana International Airport, which offers direct flights throughout Mexico and to Asia. Construction is anticipated to start next year on a major renovation and expansion on the 330-acres of Brown Field Airport. The transformation into Metro Airpark will involve new aviation, retail, hospitality, commercial and industrial uses.   [Read more…]

League of Women Voters Tour San Diego Border Crossings

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By Beryl Flom

The League of Women Voters of San Diego recently took a tour with Customs and Border Patrol. The August 2 tour was arranged by the League’s Immigration and Deportation Committee as an opportunity to educate members about various border and immigration issues.

Those issues include the wait time crossing the border, regulations by the U.S. which can slow down a smooth transition between the two countries and the court backlog for people without documentation seeking asylum. Another issue that concerns us is the deportation of non-citizen veterans who have served our country and then commit some minor legal infraction and are deported without consideration of their readjustment back to civilian life.   [Read more…]

Illegal Pot Shops Sell Black Market Products, Challenging Legal Dispensaries

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By Dr. David Blair / A Green Alternative

A Green Alternative, after its first year of operation serving the community, still faces unique challenges in the evolution of the consumer friendly medical marijuana marketplace. The biggest problem legal dispensaries face are the illegal pot shops and delivery services, which pop up like weeks after a rainstorm; each time a licensed dispensary opens, three to four illegal pot shops open up right next to them.   [Read more…]

Gun Buyback Program Comes To The Border

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By Barbara Zaragoza

The San Diego Police Department, Southern Division, held its first ever Gun Buyback program on Saturday, January 30th at the Otay Mesa Campus of Southwestern College. About twenty police staff, including cadets, retired volunteers and officers were on duty to hand out $10,000 worth of Walmart Gift cards to community members who handed over their firearms.

The Southern Division—which covers thirty-one square miles along the U.S.-Mexico border—has 85 detectives and officers serving approximately 100,000 residents. The area averages about two homicides per year.   [Read more…]

North of the Fence: The Skybridge Opens and Wagon Man Dies

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The Skybridge opened on Wednesday, which crosses from San Diego into the Tijuana International Airport. The bridge requires a toll, a passport and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol inspection. The skybridge was built with investor money that included Chicago billionaire Sam Zell who is also known as the chairman of Equity LifeStyle Properties, the largest mobile-home landlord.

Will this be the beginning of more bridges in U.S.-Mexico relations? In 1959 entrepreneur Allen Parkinson set out to create an international skyride that would cross from San Ysidro into Tijuana, relieving congestion and becoming a tourist attraction at the same time. Plans were foiled by construction of the I-5 freeway. During the 1970s a monorail was planned between San Diego and Tijuana, but the project that also went nowhere.   [Read more…]

Photography Keeps Alzheimer’s Patients In The Moment

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Most people in San Diego know that the Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA), located in Balboa Park, offers exquisite exhibits throughout the year. Lesser known are their outreach programs.

Kevin Linde, Adults Programs Coordinator, has been offering workshops to Spanish language communities in the South Bay for the last two years. Recently, in collaboration with the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), MOPA reached out to Spanish speaking seniors who have been diagnosed with various stages of Alzheimer’s.   [Read more…]

A Journey Through the Otay Valley Regional Park

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By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

Hiking or biking in Otay Valley Regional Park is not only exercise, but an activist statement. We want parks for our communities. We want to repair our environment. We want a healthy place for our kids to live and play.

Open spaces haven’t always been a priority in the South Bay.   [Read more…]

An Inside Look at A Green Alternative in Otay Mesa, San Diego’s First Legit Pot Shop

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By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

Eye On The Locals: I’m a curious person and when I see something historic happening in my community, I feel an urgent need to document and ask questions. When A Green Alternative opened in Otay Mesa on March 20, 2015 — only two blocks from a major U.S.-Mexico port of entry — I couldn’t help but find out more.

A Green Alternative is the first medicinal marijuana dispensary that has legally opened in the City and County of San Diego. It’s a historic moment, highly controversial and located in my neck of the wood–the South Bay. So I walked right up to the storefront security guard and asked for an interview.   [Read more…]

Lies and Deceit: One Neighbor’s Deportation Sheds Light on the Inhumanity of US Immigration Enforcement

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By Daniela Maria Ugaz / Upside Down World

I remember jolting awake at 6 AM. Still dark. Someone was banging on my neighbors’ door. I could hear whispering, then screaming. When I opened my eyes, just like that, I made out two, three, four distinct voices.

Months later, my neighbor, who I’ll call Beto, told me there must have been 10 to 12 police officers at his door that morning. They were definitely police and not Immigration. The squad car parked in front was stamped with the LAPD logo and the officers’ uniforms were neatly labeled POLICE. And yet this was an immigration raid. It had all the trappings of an immigration raid, from the hour it was conducted, to the defining fact that Beto, along with many other migrants in our LA neighborhood, were targeted that day for being in the country illegally. But we didn’t realize this until much later.   [Read more…]

SDPD Strip Club Raid Raises More Integrity Questions

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By Doug Porter

It was another bad day for the San Diego Police Department. A group calling itself FED UP-San Diegans Against Police Sexual Misconduct held a morning press conference in front of the Hall of Justice demanding accountability for the repeated sexual assaults by SDPD officers.

Holding up signs that said “I am Jane Doe,” referring to the a victim currently battling the city in court demanding an outside monitor for the SDPD, the group demanded sweeping changes within the department.

And then the Washington Post posted a story –originally reported on Saturday by ABC 10News— about a police department raid on a local strip club. Ten armed officers wearing bulletproof vests closed down the Cheetah Club, located in Kearny Mesa on Thursday night. In addition to checking for permits, the officers lined up the women working at the club and photographed them in their semi-nude attire.   [Read more…]

To Hell with Pio Pico – It’s Time for a La Jolla Power Plant

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By Doug Porter 

The pattern of dirty development has become undeniable in the San Diego area. Attempts to abate or oppose polluting projects in neighborhoods with higher percentages of non-whites are cast by proponents of those projects as critical to the regional economy.

A simple nine block buffer zone protecting Barrio Logan from pollution associated with the maritime industry gets attacked as threatening the entire industry. And now a proposed power plant in Otay Mesa has been reborn in the wake of last year’s closure of the San Onfre nuclear facility.

Meanwhile, a “controversy” caused by the odor of sea lion poop in La Jolla gets major media coverage. Oh. My. Goodness.

Maybe we can work out a trade. On second thought, forget that idea. Let’s just get a power plant built upwind of La Jolla. Then they won’t be bothered by the sea beasties so much.   [Read more…]

Putting the David Alvarez Mayoral Candidacy into a National Context

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By Doug Porter

While many of the issues at hand for San Diego voters in the upcoming mayoral runoff election may be local, there is a bigger picture being watched by political observers nationwide.

None of the top ten cities in the United States have Republican Mayors. Electing Kevin Faulconer in San Diego would be a double win for the GOP especially if the large Latino population is taken into consideration.  It would also serve as a counterbalance to the perceived trend of big city electorates shifting more towards the left end of the political spectrum.

One only needs to look to incoming mayor Bill de Blasio’s solid electoral win in New York to understand just how seriously the right is taking this trend.  An article in the New York Times last Friday catalogues right wing attempts to blame Mr. de Blasio for crimes currently being committed even though he’s three weeks away from being inaugurated.   [Read more…]

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