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ECONOMY: Escondido faces another fiscal obstacle: fewer people
Community activists point to anti-immigration policies
By ZACH FOX - Staff Writer | Tuesday, September 23, 2008 8:12 PM PDT

While most of California has been growing, Escondido's population declined by 8 percent from 2006 through 2007, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday.

Most of the decline came among Escondido's immigrant population, which decreased by 9,500, from about 43,500 to 34,000 in 2007. If the city's population continues to decline, it could cause reductions in tax revenues.

Latino activists said recent moves, such as frequent driver's license checkpoints, discourage immigrants from living in the city. In 2006, the city council attempted to ban landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.

The drop in immigrants led the city's overall population decline from 140,250 in 2006 to 128,800, bucking regional and national trends where overall and immigrant populations increased.

No other North County city experienced as significant a drop in overall population or immigrant numbers as Escondido, according to the data.

Though Escondido has one of the higher foreclosure numbers in the county, cities with even higher rates such as Murrieta and Temecula saw immigrant population numbers increase, reported the Census Bureau.

Instead, the loss of population in Escondido is a result of City Council policies that target Latinos, said Bill Flores, spokesman for Latino rights group El Grupo. "There's a couple of factors playing into this and one of them is the national, if not international, reputation of the city of Escondido as being a bigoted, racist, unwelcoming place for people of color," he said.

But council members said that all of its recent policies were established to address safety and quality of life in the city.

"This argument that whatever the city does in terms of crime and quality of life is directed toward Latinos is absurd. It's unjustified," said Sam Abed, an Escondido councilman.

Other council members agreed with Abed, saying the policies focused not on Latinos, but on improving the quality of life and safety in the city.

Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler said the decline in population was not the result of any policy the council had passed. She said there was no clear reason for the drop in number of immigrants.

The Census Bureau defines immigrants as residents born in another country; it makes no distinction between legal and undocumented immigrants.

Whether the population decline translates to a loss in revenue for the city of Escondido is unclear.

Any drop in sales taxes from what those residents would have spent might be offset by the decrease in services the city provides those residents.

However, the city's population determines how much of the state's gasoline tax revenues it receives for road repairs, said Gil Rojas, the city's finance director.

And though fewer people mean fewer potholes, the city still needs to maintain the same number of roads.

Still, Rojas said he isn't worried.

"Even an 11,000 population downsizing is not going to affect that tax that much," he said.

Further, Escondido has been one of the county's leading cities in foreclosure rates and real estate price declines, meaning property tax revenues could drop soon.

"I wouldn't call it a crisis mode, but when you say, 'Is it hurting the city's bottom line?' I would say the answer is, 'yes,' " said Marney Cox, economist for the San Diego Association of Governments. "And cities are looking at this and asking, 'How long is this going to last?' "

Finally, a population decline generally also means fewer students at local schools, meaning less state revenue for the school districts. However, the population losses were minor among 5- to 17-year-olds, according to the Census data.

Most of the Escondido population losses were among toddlers and adults. Indeed, enrollment at Escondido Unified School District has been stable over the last two years, said Ed Nelson, district superintendent.

But if the population decline persists, it could present problems as the city would need to maintain the same amount of infrastructure while receiving less state money to do so.

"It's not an immediate concern to your general fund," said Rojas, the city's finance director. "But on the long-term basis, you hate to see your population go down."


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