San Diego, Tijuana City Councils Hold ‘Historic’ Joint Session

City council members from San Diego and Tijuana, meeting in their first joint session Thursday, traded hosannas in what appeared to be more of a symbolic than substantive event.

“This has been a long journey to this historic moment,” said San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor.

Her counterpart, Tijuana Mayor Federico Valdes Martinez, called the gathering “one of the most beautiful pages in the annals of international fraternity.”

While the session was a milestone, its value appeared mostly symbolic. The councilmembers agreed to study and exchange information on three issues: Delays at the international border crossings, abuse of illicit drugs, and the possibility of adopting a sister-city relationship. Also discussed were cultural exchanges.

Pointedly absent was any discussion of a range of issues--illegal immigration, pollution, drug smuggling--that are at the heart of U.S.-Mexico relations and border tensions. In the past, such matters have produced angry salvos of denunciation by both nations. Not this time.

“It would be irresponsible to try and discuss every issue at our first meeting,” said Franciso Herrera, San Diego’s director of binational affairs. “We’ve got to come along slowly.”

Session Years in Coming

Officials said Thursday’s session culminated years of effort. Words like historic, unprecedented and extraordinary were used liberally.

In one concrete step, the San Diego City Council agreed to appropriate $20,000 for the San Diego-Tijuana International History Fair, a 5-year-old annual event that is scheduled to begin today, in Tijuana. The fair, which involves 3,000 high school students from both cities, is designed to promote understanding of the vastly different cultures that meet, and often clash, at the border.

“The money will help a lot,” said Elena Mier y Teran, who sits on a binational advisory panel and helped found the fair, which is now funded with donations from both U.S. and Mexican universities.

Despite the limited agenda, officials said the meeting was significant in that it stressed the importance of one border city to the other. Economically, the links between the two countries are many, exemplified most visibly by the U.S. tourists who regularly shop in Tijuana, and by the Mexicans whose expenditures contribute millions of dollars annually to the San Diego economy.

“The border ports between our respective cities are . . . open doors that encourage union, and not barriers of separation,” Valdes said.

To further encourage passage between the open doors, several San Diego officials revived a long-time wish: The extension of the San Diego Trolley line into Tijuana. “I think that would be the most exciting thing that ever happened,” O’Connor said, “to link us up via mass transit.”

But don’t count on it, Valdes said. “We have limited resources,” he said, adding that he would pass the idea on to federal officials.

His comment pointed out a critical difference between the power of local governments in the heavily centralized Mexican system and in the United States, where cities and counties have considerably more financial resources.

Tijuana, with an estimated population of 1.5 million, has a municipal budget of about $17 million, officials said. San Diego, with a population of about 1 million, has an annual budget of more than $700 million. Any major projects in Mexico require federal and state assistance.

No matter. The cities’ similarities, their common cultural and historic traits, not their differences were the topics of discussion Thursday. When a proposal that the two municipalities begin a sister-city relationship, San Diego Councilman J. Bruce Henderson’s comments exemplified the prevalent ambiance of cooperation.

“In a sense, we’re not sister cities, we’re one city,” Henderson said

The sister-city idea was put on hold until the next two-council session, tentatively scheduled to take place in Tijuana next October. The goal is for the two councils to meet biannually.