Daily Business Report-April 9, 2019
Almond grower Jonathan Hoff of Monte Vista Farming Co. in Denair says Trump’s trade wars have forced him to cut hours and rent warehouses for unsold produce that China once could have been counted on to buy. (Photo for CALmatters by Ian Darling)
A year into Trump’s trade
turmoil, an iconic California
industry struggles to resist
By Martha Groves, CALmatters
The old joke about the California lieutenant governor’s office has been that its occupant’s main duty is to wake up in the morning, see whether the governor is still alive and, if so, go back to bed.
But that was before Gov. Gavin Newsom made Eleni Kounalakis his point woman on President Donald Trump’s trade wars.
Now, California’s lieutenant governor is among the busier officeholders in Sacramento—hustling to meet with members of Congress, federal agencies and trade organizations and deploying whatever influence she can to protect California’s place in the world market.
She has her work cut out for her. It has been a year since Trump sent a collective shudder through California’s economy, imposing taxes on imported steel and aluminum that in turn prompted China to impose new tariffs on agricultural products.
India and other countries soon followed suit, setting tariffs as high as 100 percent on some of California’s high-value crops. Since then, the Trump administration has engaged in trade brinkmanship on many fronts—including on-again, off-again threats to close the Mexican border. Meanwhile, a bevy of signature California products—almonds, pistachios, walnuts, wine grapes, oranges, dairy—have teetered on the verge of becoming collateral damage.
So far, the worst-case scenario has not come to pass, and some products, such as pistachios, have survived relatively unscathed, at least for now. But the damage has not been insignificant, either.
In a report last August, Daniel A. Sumner, an economist with UC Davis’ Agricultural Issues Center and Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, projected that higher tariffs could cost major U.S. fruit and nut industries $2.64 billion per year in exports to countries imposing the higher levies; the economic blow could rise to as much as $3.34 billion because of lower prices in alternative markets.
And some fears have been entirely realized. Sales of California oranges to China are off by more than half, broader problems in the state dairy industry have been exacerbated by trade tussles, and the almond and wine industries have struggled to cope with price pressures and punishing tariffs.
“Whenever you have an atmosphere of uncertainty, it creates a chilling effect,” Kounalakis said in an interview. “Customers in Asia will look for alternatives elsewhere.”
And, she added, if customers find suppliers in other countries—say, Turkey for pistachios or New Zealand for wine—it could be hard for California to win them back.
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Salvador Hector Ochoa
named SDSU Provost
By La Monica Everett-Haynes | SDSU NewsCenter
Salvador Hector Ochoa has been appointed San Diego State University’s Pprovost and senior vice president. Ochoa’s tenure at SDSU begins on July 2. Ochoa, currently dean of the College of Education and a professor at the University of New Mexico, is well-respected across the nation for his research on bilingual psychoeducational assessment and educational programming issues related to Latino students.
Ochoa will provide leadership for the university’s inclusive, campus-wide visioning process in alignment with its shared governance priorities. He will also hold a crucial role as SDSU begins its university-wide strategic planning.
Ochoa has extensive expertise in the areas of fiscal management and oversight, accreditation and assessment, growth of research infrastructure and enterprise, state and university regulations, and student retention and success. Also, having raised $11.47 million during the first four years of his deanship and increasing the number of endowed student scholarships, Ochoa brings documented expertise in alumni engagement, development and fundraising.
Ochoa earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from St. Edward’s University in 1981, a Master of Education in Guidance and Counseling from Pan American University in 1984, and a doctorate in school psychology from Texas A&M University in 1989.
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United Way’s Women’s Leadership Council
changes name and gets new chairperson
The Women’s Leadership Council, a part of United Way of San Diego County, has changed its name to Women United and has a new chair — Christina Hastings.
“Women United is a powerful group of women who mobilize to raise much-needed funds that make a direct impact on women and children in the San Diego region,” said Hastings. “Our new approach and tagline ‘Be Bold. Be Engaged. Be Connected’ allows a diverse network of community-minded women to take action, drive change and create community.”
Since its 2008 inception, Women United has grown to consist of 124 women involved in the group, from a wide variety of industries in the San Diego community, according to United Way President and CEO Nancy Sasaki. “Women United provides women the opportunity to become philanthropic leaders by empowering them to make grant decisions, expand philanthropic awareness, and attend exclusive education, volunteer and network events,” said Sasaki.
Under the leadership of Hastings – a longtime United Way volunteer and the director of corporate communications for Bridgepoint Education – Women United is poised to continue its focus on the core issues of education and family stability. Hastings said that going forward “goals include increasing membership offerings and programs, working to create resources around challenges that face San Diego County women and children, and creating synergy amongst local women’s giving circles and nonprofits.”
Members voted to invest the majority of the $100,000 raised – 40 percent – to create Dashboards to Track Academic Success. The state-of-the-art dashboard will allow a countywide network of partners to track key academic and social milestones and help create proven strategies that impact children’s educational and career success.
Any San Diego County female can join Women United by making an annual gift of at least $1,000. For more information or to join, visit https://uwsd.org/Women-United.
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How to collect $400 million
Assembly gives final OK to bill to require
online sellers to collect sales tax
CALmatters
Online sellers and shoppers are about to lose breaks they get from avoiding sales taxes.
Expect the Assembly to give final approval this week to legislation that would require almost all online sellers to collect sales tax. That will generate an estimated $309 million in this fiscal year and $476 million next year.
The state Senate approved the bill 36-0 on Friday. Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to quickly sign the bill into law.
The measure, by Assemblywoman Autumn Burke of Los Angeles and Sen. Mike McGuire of Healdsburg, will implement a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Wayfair vs. South Dakota, making clear that states can tax sales made by online sellers located beyond their borders.
Smaller states are levying sales taxes on companies with sales of $100,000 or more. California, however, will require companies with sales of $500,000 or more to collect sales taxes.
The higher threshold could help small online sellers.
Tracking down smaller sellers could be overly burdensome.
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Cubic’s Trafficware upgrades Cupertino’s
Transportation Management System
Trafficware, which operates within Cubic Corporation’s Cubic Transportation Systems business division, was selected by the city of Cupertino to deliver its ATMS Transportation Management System to manage traffic across the city. The agreement includes services to install as well as integrate existing and new intersection traffic controllers citywide.
ATMS brings traffic network data into a single repository for a real-time, 360-degree view of network traffic operations and is a powerful performance and engineering tool that features capabilities developed from direct input from hundreds of ATMS customers from all over the world.
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Cubic awarded $4 million contract
to deliver mobile ticketing system
Cubic Transportation System’s business division was awarded a contract worth more than $4 million from the National Transport Authority to deliver a mobile ticketing system for Ireland. Cubic’s scalable and low-risk solution will improve customer experience and provide users with a single capability to purchase tickets for multiple public transport operators. Cubic’s mobile ticketing solution supports the NTA’s vision to make public transportation in Ireland simpler and more efficient for travelers.
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Public invited to attend 250th
Port commemoration event
The Port of San Diego is hosting a commemoration of San Diego’s 250th anniversary and the public is invited to attend. The event is free and will take place on Thursday, April 11, 2019, exactly 250 years after the first seaborne contingent of Spanish settlement arrived in San Diego harbor onboard the vessel San Antonio. The event location will be the Port’s Embarcadero Marina Park North, 400 Kettner Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92101.
Beginning at 12 p.m., the commemoration will start with a Kumeyaay Nation cultural exchange. Following that, remarks will be given by City of San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer; Port of San Diego Chairman Garry Bonelli; and Jamul Indian Village Chairwoman Erica Pinto and Manzanita Chairwoman Angela Elliott Santos of the Kumeyaay Nation.
This is one of several events taking place during 2019 to commemorate San Diego’s 250th anniversary and where California began. For more information, visit the San Diego 250 website at sandiego250.com.
