Why this matters
Business improvement districts are city-designated areas where business owners agree to tax themselves to fund activities and improvements. In some cases, districts manage hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue.
Businesses in a San Ysidro commercial district may soon have the authority to advance their “new vision” for their community.
Announced at a meet-and-greet mixer last week, the newly established San Ysidro Community and Economic Development Corporation will seek to manage the area’s business improvement district.
The corporation still needs its official nonprofit status before it can legally secure a management contract with the city of San Diego. The group’s board applied for the status with the IRS and is awaiting approval.
Business improvement districts, or BIDs, are city-designated areas where business owners agree to pay annual taxes to fund activities and improvements. This can look like funding litter cleanup, installing signage, hiring security guards or hosting special events.
The San Ysidro district stretches more than two miles along Interstate 5, from the San Ysidro Trolley Station to Dairy Mart Road. The area sits just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, making it home to a binational community.
Cleaning up litter, for instance, has been a concern for locals like Silvana Alaníz, an interim board member of the new corporation. She is the owner of El Rincón Restaurant, which hosted Wednesday’s mixer.
Alaníz said she has seen the group solicit help from local government agencies to increase cleanups and hopes the group keeps doing so.
For months, she’s been participating in a working group that helped create the new organization that will oversee San Ysidro’s BID.
“If there is no strong community, there is no strong business,” Alaníz told inewsource in Spanish. “That has to go hand in hand.”
The new organization comes after San Diego officials terminated a contract with the previous nonprofit manager of the district, the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce.
A city spokesperson previously said the chamber’s issues with financial stability and fulfilling “accurate and complete” financial documentation contributed to the decision to end the contract.
Rudy Lopez Jr., former treasurer of the chamber, acknowledged in an interview with inewsource the organization’s mistakes on financial reports. However, he said the chamber also struggled with slow communication from city staff, leading to delayed disbursement of BID funds and, consequently, issues with cash flow and paying rent.
The chamber attempted to salvage the relationship by contacting city staff. But Lopez said the city ignored them and then blamed the chamber for lack of communication.
“That’s a pretty petty way of running things,” Lopez said.
He said he looks forward to the new organization managing the day-to-day operations of the district, but “I still don’t have any confidence in the city of San Diego oversight of (the) BID.”
Jason Wells, who led the San Ysidro chamber, said via text message this week that the district “looked” and did “much better” than “any day of my tenure than today.”
“Our work spoke for itself, I really don’t need to defend (the) postmortem,” he said.
Wells declined to comment further, citing his new employer’s work on city projects.
Business owners saw their tax payments go unspent following the city’s cut-off of the chamber’s contract. But after months of meetings, the group is ready to get to work.
City spokesperson Benjamin Cartwright told inewsource the city’s Economic Development Department “has been working closely” with the district’s taxpayers to establish the new organization “that is well positioned to be a successful BID manager.”
Cartwright said the City Council will decide on whether to enter into a contract with the new organization.
The city declined to respond to Lopez’s allegations.
Business leaders joke that the new organization’s name is a mouthful. However, members of the group wanted to make clear that improvements to the district go beyond monetary goals.
These include a focus on supporting cultural events and improvements to quality of life that other local groups are already working on for San Ysidrans, said Gustavo Bidart, economic and community development manager at Civic Community Partners. The city hired CCP to help with the management transition.
On the economic side, Bidart and another contractor plan to host classes on how business owners can secure government contracts.
Whatever the focus, Bidart wants to see “new blood, new vision, new people” get involved, particularly with joining the new organization’s board.
“You gotta be open to different types of opinions so that we do this,” he said.
The nonprofit corporation is expected to hold elections to appoint a permanent board in compliance with city rules. Those who pay into the taxes to fund San Ysidro’s business improvement district will have a chance to vote or run for a seat.
Eligible candidates can be nominated by another person or themselves by 4 p.m. today, Sept 17. Elections will take place in November. For more information, click here.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
