New Trump travel ban begins Monday

Good Morning, I’m John Carroll, in for Debbie Cruz. It’s Friday, June 6th.

This is the final weekend before a new travel ban takes effect.

More on that next. But first... the headlines.

The San Diego District Attorney’s Office has an update on vandalism that targeted Hillcrest last year.

Swastikas and homophobic slurs were found on public property near 5th and Robinson.

According to our news partner 10News – D-A Summer Stephan announced two people were sentenced to probation and restitution for the vandalism.

Nearly 25-hundred dollars was paid to the Hillcrest Business Association.

The organization says the money will go to volunteers who mobilized to clean up the damage.

A bailout might be coming for San Diego’s beach fire pits.

San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer and San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava are working on a stop-gap funding plan.

Supervisor Lawson-Remer is offering 135-thousand dollars in grant money earmarked for her District, which includes many San Diego beaches.

The city of San Diego had planned to eliminate funding to maintain the fire pits in its upcoming budget.

A final vote on the budget is scheduled for next week.

San Diego F-C will host its first international “friendly” this weekend at Snapdragon Stadium.

Saturday’s exhibition with Mexico’s “Club America” is set for 7 p-m Saturday.Two weeks ago, San Diego’s match with the L-A Galaxy was anything but friendly.

Spectators brawled after the game in the stadium’s upper bowl, resulting in 33 people being banned from future events.

Last weekend’s game against Austin was the first since the violence, and included enhanced security.

From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.

A new travel ban applying to people from a dozen countries goes into effect Monday as President Donald Trump revives one of the signature policies of his first administration.

Military and veterans reporter Andrew Dyer says it's just the latest of several actions that have effectively ended Afghan resettlement.

Vandiver: “At our height, we had 5000 afghans leaving on 28 flights a month from Kabul."

Shawn Vandiver is a San Diego navy veteran who helped start afghanevac, a non-profit that helps resettle Afghans in the U.S.

On Trump’s first day in office, he halted refugee resettlement, leaving thousands of vetted Afghans approved to travel to the U.S. in limbo.

Last month his administration ended temporary protected status for thousands of Afghans already in the U.S., and the legal status of thousands more remains at risk.

And, while Trump's travel ban includes exceptions for certain visa holders, Vandiver says it’s not enough.

“The reality is, is that the infrastructure to help them has been degraded, and they're trying to turn it off completely.”

The new travel ban applies to 12 countries with travel from seven more being restricted.

Vandiver says more than 200,000 former U.S. allies are still in Afghanistan.

Andrew Dyer, KPBS news.

Voting begins in the south bay this week, in the runoff election for San Diego county’s district 1 supervisor.

It's a race that will decide whether democrats or republicans have more influence over the county government.

South bay reporter Kori Suzuki says the top two candidates have different priorities when it comes to housing and homelessness.

Both candidates are clear on their priorities for housing and homelessness.

John McCann is a Republican and the mayor of Chula Vista.

He’s strongly supported bans on homeless encampments.

And says his top priority is supporting home ownership.

“I support the American dream. I want people who work in Chula Vista actually to own in Chula Vista.”

McCann owns two property management companies and has received donations and endorsements from landlord industry groups.

Running against him is Imperial Beach mayor Paloma Aguirre.

She’s pushed for stronger tenant protections, and has also backed harsher encampment laws.

She says her focus would be on more affordable housing.

“What we need is working-class housing. We need low and very low and moderate level income housing.”

If you live in District 1, the last day to cast your ballot is July 1st.

Kori Suzuki, KPBS News.

The San Diego city council meets today (Friday) to discuss changes to the proposed city budget.

It calls for closing all 37 libraries on Sundays and Mondays.

Education reporter Katie Anastas says council members want to find a way to keep them open, especially on Mondays.

A new report from the city’s Independent Budget Analyst outlines the cost and staffing needs for Monday hours at 14 of the 37 branches, including the ten libraries that offer after-school homework help.

Monday hours would cost about $3 million for the full day and $2 million for a half day.

“The young people in these communities often do not have another option.”

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera says one way to pay for restored hours is moving up the start date for paid parking at Balboa Park.

Gloria’s budget suggests charging for parking starting Jan. 1. 

Elo-Rivera and other council members say starting by Labor Day could bring in another $5.5 million.

He says the city could also consider charging non-residents to park at the zoo.

“We absolutely have the capacity and the ability to accelerate making those folks pay. Why would we not do that when the benefit that comes from that could be reopening libraries, reopening, excuse me, never shutting down libraries?”

The City Council will discuss the report on Friday.

They’ll make modifications and adopt a final budget on Tuesday.

Katie Anastas, KPBS News.

Little Saigon San Diego, a non-profit organization overseeing the city’s Little Saigon district, will be hosting a tribute concert this weekend.

It”s commemorating fifty years of the Vietnamese diaspora journey

Andrew Bracken spoke with Su Nguyen (nwinn), founder of Little Saigon San Diego and Tram Lam, the management officer behind the non-profit, to learn more about the festival’s theme, history and what’s next.

So, the theme for this year's concert is 50 years of the diaspora journey.

How are you commemorating that important milestone this year? Thank you for a great question. So, this is the 50 years like half of century. So, we've been here since the fall of Saigon. So, over the time We work really hard. We come together and we established a district now called Little Saigon.

And this concert, so we want to bring all the famous performer around the world, Vietnamese performer to come to San Diego to celebrate together with the Vietnamese community here. So we going to portray showcase the successful of the community using the music. So, through the music, people can see themselves in there.

And the memory and all those sadness when they left Vietnam. So, we're going to bring it back. So, Tram, tell us more about the music and the role that playing here. The community began with the fall Saigon on the the end of the war, which is a sad a very unfortunate thing. But then it's also there's some great thing coming out of this uh the sadness.

After about 2 million people uh escape um go out of the sea and escape, then we have a blooming of a community here in San Diego. And this is marked the 50th year of our thriving community. But it's also marked the 50th year of the whole community at large because with this change it's also changed the whole dynamic of our uh San Diego community as well. So, we want to um celebrate it.

From the very first day where the community come with nothing beside the clothes on the their back and then all those uh story, the work hard work, the um challenge that they're facing and where we get to where we are right now. So all those steps, all those uh road that we walk is so hard to um describe it in word. So we using music through music.

We can bring all those those story back and then we'll look back the the journey and we um we celebrate. We have we have been and where we are today. So you're having this concert here, but there's more than just the concert, right? There's also a storytelling exhibition. Can you talk a little bit about that tram? And and you know, what are you hoping to to bring out in these tributes to folks stories here?

So story is very important cuz We walk out the street and we see that these restaurant and then um supermarket, they are thriving, they're making the business, they're making their daily life. And we shop at these uh story, but we don't really know that a lot of these Vietnamese each of us are carrying scarf story behind that. I'm just curious though, you know, what are your hopes for the next 50 years?

What would you like to see from the the community at large?

 What we did uh on the weekend is we sending out um more more than 18,000 piece of mail to all the Vietnamese household in Sangol County and we ask that same question. We ask, you know, what is the significant of the last 50 year and also what are we hoping? What is your hoping for the next 50 year? So we want to know what is the community want to see in 50 year.

Right now, we uh we are settled with you know the roof on our head, but now we need to emerge more into the community. If you go into like a city council and uh or maybe community uh input event, you don't see a lot of enemies there and that is hard because, you know, we are not out there. Our voice is not being heard and go back to maybe it's because of a language barrier. But then the next 50 year we need to work on that.

We need to um get out there and be on the table and uh get a voice heard so that we can be a part of a at large community. So that is my personal hope. But um we like I say, we are sending out this uh community need assessment uh survey and we hope to uh find out what exactly the Vietnamese community what is our hope for the next 50 year?

That was Su Nguyen and Tram Lam, both with Little Saigon San Diego, speaking with Andrew Bracken.

The North Park Music Fest is also happening this weekend.

Dozens of acts will perform at 10 different venues across the neighborhood.

KPBS will also have a presence, with Parker Edison hosting the Rap Diego showcase Saturday afternoon.

For more weekend events, visit KPBS-dot-org.

That’s it for the podcast today. I’m John Carroll. Thanks for listening and have a great day.