San Luis, Arizona — The City of San Luis was glad to welcome Mayor Robert Uribe of the City of Douglas, Arizona along with, City Council Member Fernando Betancourt, City Attorney Juan Pablo Flores, and City Clerk Brenda Aguilar on December 15-16th. The purpose of the visit was to tour City of San Luis facilities, including a tour the San Luis Commercial Port of Entry II to discuss how San Luis processes their traffic.
On Friday, December 15th, Vice Mayor Maria C. Ramos and Chief Richard Jessup led Douglas City leaders through a tour of San Luis City Hall and the City of San Luis Police Department facilities. That evening, Douglas officials joined City Council and employees at the City of San Luis Employee Recognition dinner at the Cesar Chavez Cultural Center. On Saturday morning, Mayor Sanchez and Vice Mayor Maria C. Ramos with guests Mayor Uribe of Douglas and Douglas city officials joined Mayor Yepez of Somerton and Mayor Nicholls of Yuma at the Somerton Tamale Festival.
Early Saturday morning, Mayor Gerardo Sanchez, Vice Mayor Maria Ramos, and Council Member Matias Rosales accompanied Douglas’ delegation to meet Chief Justin Winburn of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at San Luis Port of Entry II.
While the expansion and modernization of the San Luis Port of Entry has recently begun and is expected to be completed in the Fall of 2018, the City of Douglas Port of Entry has also garnered support for their facility’s need for modernization. During his recent visit to Douglas, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey expressed his support for Douglas and all of Arizona’s border communities. According to the Arizona-Mexico Commission, trade between Arizona-Mexico in 2016 accounted for $8.3 billion in exports, which is approximately 40% of Arizona's total exports and $7.4 billion in imports. In addition, 90,000 Arizona jobs are supported by trade with Mexico.
While discussing innovative ways to improve the port and how to make processing more efficient, Mayor Sanchez stated that investing in border crossing infrastructure, upgrading technology that will aid in facilitating custom inspections, as well as hiring enough officers to reduce wait times, will greatly benefit the State of Arizona and the entire region’s economy. “It is a team effort. It is not just about San Luis, we can make a bigger impact working together as border communities. Which is what we are doing and we will continue to do,” stated Mayor Sanchez.
For more information about this topic, or to schedule a meeting with the City of San Luis Public Affairs Office, please call us (928) 341-8520 or email us at publicrelations@cityofsanluis.org.
