Salinas United Business Association to dissolve by the end of the year.

For over 20 years, the Salinas United Business Association has been part of the landscape in East Salinas, helping business owners with permitting, offering seminars and marketing and so on. It also collects annual, mandatory assessments from businesses to support beautification, landscaping, clean-ups and special events.

But this is about to change; the board decided on Sept. 29 that it will phase out the organization.

“The main reason for it really had to do with how the economy has been really, really bad in the last two years,” says Alejandro Chavez, SUBA’s executive director.

Most recently, an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment, fear of deportation and increased tariffs have dwindled revenue for small businesses in East Salinas and beyond.

Since its inception, SUBA has struggled to keep afloat and collect assessments. In 2019, Chavez was trying to figure out how to keep the organization in existence while facing opposition from business owners. Chavez was the only remaining employee of SUBA, working part-time.

According to a 2024-25 annual report by SUBA, only 40 percent of 420 businesses paid their dues for the year, meaning SUBA only collected $40,550 of $100,440 projected in revenue from dues.

That is not an isolated figure: Chavez estimates that business owners owe over $1 million in assessments cumulatively.

While SUBA will go away, Chavez says business owners are looking for a different approach, perhaps similar to the Salinas City Center Improvement Association in downtown Salinas, which would entail shifting from a business-led to a property-owner-led association.

On Sept. 23, Salinas City Council was set to vote on levying and collecting SUBA’s annual assessment for the year 2025-26, but the matter was postponed indefinitely.

Chavez, who now works for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, plans to help sunset the organization.