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VOL. 9, NO. 5
Maritime smuggling ops on the rise By Tony Cagala
COAST CITIES — House upon house fills up a hillside in a portion of the Tijuana neighborhood of Colonia Libertad. It’s a w arm, sunny midmorning. Music plays from a storefront, a woman ushers some children across a quiet street and a do g slinks through a series of tar p covered sheds, intermingled between pink and y ellow Spanish Colonial-style homes. Not more than a fe w feet from the pr operties’ edges, a fence line as tall as 6-to-8-feet runs to the east and west for as long as the eye can see. The fence is the international boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. All of this is visible from a well-maintained, weatherproof road that U .S. Border Patrol agents tr avel daily. Towers topped with video cameras and stadium-style lighting are spaced at intervals along the road. The cameras, equipped with infrared and night vision capa bilities are constantly monitoring the area, and the lights illuminate the space in between Tijuana and the U.S. nightly. On this r oad, agents patrolling see a v ariety of conditions from impoverished and poor comm unities to some of the nicest beac h-
Celebrate spring with our special Home & Garden section inside
San Dieguito Board talks bonds, school violence By Sandy Coronilla
The Tijuana, Mexico neighborhood of Colonia Libertad is a well-known area to U.S. Border Patrol agents as a place where smugglers live and base their operations out of. The U.S./Mexico international boundary fence runs past the neighborhood, extending 300 feet out into the Pacific Ocean. Photo by Tony Cagala
front communities around. “As far as sm uggling goes on…maybe someone could speculate, ‘OK, in the impoverished areas, there might be more,’ that’s not the case, actually,” said Border Patrol Agent Jacopo Bruni. “We have not seen a tr end where in one neighborhood there’s more traffic because
of the fact.” But based on the a bility to conduct inter views with detained smugglers, agents have become well aware that Colonia Libertad is wher e a lot of smugglers live and base their operations out of, Bruni explained. “A lot of smugglers actually learned their tr ades
from generations being passed on and on, and it came from here,” he said. San Diego Sector’ s Border Patrol covers 60 terrestrial miles along the U.S./Mexico international boundary. Eastward from the San Ysidro Port of Entr y is TURN TO SMUGGLING ON A19
Fair CEO honored for 20 years of service By Bianca Kaplanek
DEL MAR — Tim Fennell, chief executive officer and gener al manager of the Del Mar Fairgrounds, was recognized for his 20 years of service during the March 12 board of directors meeting. The state-owned facility, as well as Fennell’s now-gray hair, currently bear little resemblance to what either looked like when he was hired in 1993, the staff report noted. When Fennell started, the Del Mar F air, as it w as known at the time, was the 13th largest such event in North America. It is no w ranked fourth on the continent and No. 1 in California. Departments have been created and new events such as the Holiday of Lights and Scream Zone w ere added. There have been impr ove-
MARCH 22, 2013
Tim Fennell, Del Mar Fairgrounds chief executive officer and general manager, when he started at the facility in 1993, left, and now Courtesy photos
ments to some buildings, while others have been completely replaced. Fair sponsorship dollars have grown from less than
WRITING IT OUT Rancho Santa F e resident and author Ross Talarico has released his new novel, “Sled Run,” a modern-day Robin Hood story. He’s also looking to start a ne w project — the telling of peoples’ li ves in long form. A12
Two Sections, 60 pages Arts & Entertainment . A12 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . A25 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A23 Food & Wine . . . . . . . . A10 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A21
$50,000 to more than $2.8 million. Overall revenues have gone from $19 million to more than $60 million. The 340-acre site has
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received numerous awards for everything from its programs to its recycling efforts. Director Fred Schenk likened Fennell to a duc k swimming smoothly across the top of a pond.The millions of people who come thr ough the gate don’ t see y our feet paddling like crazy under the water, he said. Such was the case at the fair during his first year at the helm. Grandstand artist Tanya Tucker was brought in by helicopter because she was an hour late, having been sidetracked by a professional football player she appear ed with the previous night on a talk show. “I’ve learned a lot fr om you as a manager ,” Director David Lizerbram said. “You always stick to your guns and do what you think is right.” Fennell said he w as honored and humbled b y the recognition. “It’s been an adventure the last 20 y ears,” he said, crediting the staff more than himself for the success of the fairgrounds. “I’m the one who’ s always whistling on Monda y morning because of this staff,” he said. “It’s easy f or me to come to work every day. I’m the lucky guy.” The fairgrounds is curTURN TO SERVICE ON A22
COAST CITIES — The County Board of Supervisors is e xpected to authorize San Dieguito Union High Sc hool District to issue up to $160 million in general obligation bonds. Last month the district board of trustees appr oved the issuance of the bonds but the plan w as reworked to reflect compliance with a proposed California Assembly Bill that w ould place limits on the issuance of school bonds. Board President Barbara Groth and Vice President Amy Herman agreed to discuss the district’s bond financing and other important public education issues suc h as the continued district f ocus on academic excellence and its plans to prevent school violence. SDUHSD is a mid dle size suburban high sc hool district serving more than 12,000 students in North County, including about 500 from Rancho Santa Fe.
Bond Financing: SideStepping the Media Hype
District Superintendant Ken Noah called last f all’s voter-approved Proposition AA, the $449 million sc hool bond project, as the highlight of his ten ure. Noah plans to retire in June, so it will be up to sc hool board members, like Herman and Groth, to answer for how well they handle the issuance of the general obligation bonds. With the state legislature likely to approve a bill — AB 182 fr om Assembly member Ben Hueso (D-San Diego), which would limit the debt ratio to no mor e than 4-to-1 and cap the number of y ears the bonds can run to no mor e than 25 years, Groth said they decided to play it smart. “Our guys r etooled it (to comply with AB 182)
rather than going f orward and getting slammed later on,” she said. Groth said because of the media attention surrounding Poway Unified School District’s controversial capital appr eciation bonds, San Dieguito no w has a policy against them. “The best you can do as a board member is make the best decision with whatever you have right there in front of you,” Groth said. What the district is left with is a plan to modernize multiple facilities across the district, such as Torrey Pines High Sc hool which will get stadium lights and Can yon Crest Academy that will develop stadium and athletic facilities.
What’s Most Important: Academics
Board member Herman said the most important issue facing California public schools and SDUHSD specifically is impr oving achievement for each student. “Our district has continued to keep the focus on this even in these difficult financial times,” Herman said. She credits the collaborative culture that e xists between district teac hers for their success in this area. “Our district test scores have continued to impr ove by every measure,” Herman said. Indeed, students in all 10 of the district’ s schools have improved their Academic Performance Index scores this past y ear, for a district-wide total increase of 10 points. She said one c hallenge is the transition from traditional California Athletic Standards to the Common Core State Standards. “This transition is something that all districts are preparing for, and our TURN TO BONDS ON A19